In This eNewsletter:
• Stand and Deliver by Thomas J. Norton
• True Stereo by Scott Wilkinson
• The Truman Show Special Edition by Thomas J. Norton
• DisplaySearch HDTV Conference 2005 by Scott Wilkinson

By Thomas J. Norton

Products often acquire names that describe their applications. But sometimes these names can be misleading. Speakers are often described as floor-standing, in-wall, and on-wall. And any small box speaker that isn't tall enough to sit on the floor is dubbed a bookshelf model.

So where is the worst place to put a bookshelf speaker? On a bookshelf! (Okay, the worst place is actually on the floor, but that's obvious, isn't it?)

For starters, the average buyer who spies a potentially speaker-friendly shelf almost always turns the speaker sideways. It fits better that way. But for reasons having to do with the interaction of the drivers, which are almost always separated by a foot or so, such a speaker always performs better when positioned so that its drivers line up vertically, not horizontally.

But there's more. When you locate a speaker on a shelf and push it back as far as possible (the usual practice), you're placing it in a cavity, which causes it to sound dreadful. It will sound even worse if positioned at the bottom of a barrel, but the result differs only in degree. What to do?

The best place for most so-called "bookshelf" speakers is actually on well-designed stands. Most such speakers are actually voiced to sound the way their makers intended only when mounted on stands and, in addition, located well away from any walls. Yes, stands do have problems of their own. The floor reflection from the speaker, when combined with the sound that comes to the listener directly, can put a dip in the frequency response in the lower midrange—but that can also happen when a speaker is on a bookshelf. (That floor-dip anomaly is often called the Allison effect, after the late, great speaker designer, Roy Allison, the first expert to observe and write about the problem.)

And not all stands are created equal. In fact, reviews of stands are relatively common in the British audio press, though I can't recall the last speaker stand review I read that originated on this side of the pond.

Solid, heavy stands can also be expensive. The best advice I can give is to pick well-made stands that are the right height (they should place the tweeter at about ear level) and reasonably priced relative to the cost of the speakers. Stands costing up to 25% of the speaker price would not be out of line.

If the stands are hollow and designed for filling, load them up with either lead shot (if you're up for some dead-lift practice) or sand. There's even a subset of enthusiasts that swears by kitty litter, but let's not go there.

Audiophiles also recommend that stands be spiked to make good contact with the floor. But that's a story for another day, and probably not the best recommendation if you just put in new hardwood floors. But spikes can go through carpet with no visible damage—though you'll likely want to avoid puncturing that antique Persian rug. And make sure you don't mind marring whatever is underneath the carpet.

Fasten the speaker securely to the stand. Some experts recommend spikes here, too, though that will certainly mar the speaker cabinet. A better alternative is the sort of non-hardening putty often marketed for earthquake proofing knick-knacks. It's sold under a variety of names; the best known is Blu-Tac. Four small wads of this malleable stuff compressed between the speaker and stand will secure most speakers reasonably well and cause no damage.

The only problem with stands is the same problem with any speaker located two feet or more out from the walls—the local decorating police will surely object. I'd stand my ground when it comes to the front speakers (though a Helm's Deep battle might well ensue). But positioning the surround speakers on bookshelves is not an unreasonable compromise—assuming, of course, that the shelves are located in an appropriate area for the surrounds. A bookshelf also gets the speakers up higher than stands normally can, and an elevated position is usually a plus for surrounds.

If you do put your surrounds on bookshelves, remember one simple rule: do everything you can to minimize those cavity resonances. Position the front of the speaker at least flush with the front of the shelf. Surround it with records, CDs, DVDs, or even books (it is a bookshelf, isn't it?). Leave as little empty shelf space as possible for a distance at least a foot or two from the speaker on all sides. And the more heavy books on the shelf (assuming it's sturdy enough), the better. They will limit the shelf structure itself from singing along with the speaker—another source of coloration.

Also check for rattling collectables that may be on the shelves (well away from those book-surrounded speakers, of course!). You can probably silence such noises with a few blobs of that tacky-putty—something you'll want to anyway if, like me, you live in earthquake country.

By Scott Wilkinson

Most AV buffs would probably apply the word "stereo" exclusively to 2-channel audio systems. So you might be surprised to learn that "stereo" has nothing to do with the number 2 per se; it derives from the Greek word for "solid." It was applied to 2-channel sound systems when they first became available because those systems rendered a much more "solid" sonic image with much more specific placement of individual elements (instruments, voices, etc.) than the monaural systems that had preceded them. Similarly, 5.1-channel playback is far more "stereo" than 2-channel systems can manage.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology, located in Ilmenau, Germany, is extending this concept even farther with its IOSONO system. Designed primarily for commercial cinema and other public-venue applications, IOSONO (pronounced EE-oh-so-no) places literally hundreds of individually addressable speaker drivers around a room, forming a continuous line that completely encircles the audience. The drivers include 1-inch dome tweeters and 5.5-inch midrange cones mounted in rectangular panels that each hold eight 2-way pairs of drivers and 16 amplifiers to power them. Several powered subwoofers are also placed around the room to handle the low frequencies.

The IOSONO system utilizes Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) technology. WFS is based on the work of 17th-century Dutch mathematician and astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who proposed that the wave field of a single source can be accurately emulated by many closely spaced sources located on the perimeter of the original wave field. Thus, any virtual sound source can be realistically reproduced by an array of actual sound sources, such as the drivers in the IOSONO panels.

Sounds to be reproduced by IOSONO can come from any playback system. Each input is encoded with localization coordinates for that source, along with other metadata. Also encoded is information about the physical configuration of the speaker array and the room in which it is installed.

WFS algorithms render signals for the speaker array in real time to simulate the sound of the original sources at the designated coordinates. This involves much more than simple amplitude panning; complex changes in a signal's phase, delay, and spectrum are also important components of the process. The software allows a mixing engineer to control the position and movement of each sound source graphically on the screen. Using multiple computers, the current system has enough horsepower to render up to 32 separate sound sources in this manner.

I recently attended a demonstration of the IOSONO system at Todd-AO in Los Angeles. That system included 38 panels (304 2-way speakers) and eight subwoofers, all fed by eight rendering PCs (each with a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 CPU and 1GB of RAM). The demo material included specially produced clips with many sound sources moving around and a single-source "whispering ghost" that attendees could move around the room with an electronic pen and tablet.

The effect was quite startling and much more natural sounding than even 5.1 systems, in which the sweet spot is often relatively small. In this demo, the sweet spot essentially encompassed the entire room, and the sonic image remained completely stable no matter how I turned my head. Even the apparent distance from each source was clearly evident. All in all, it was one of the best holographic sound demos I've ever heard, expanding the sound field well beyond the physical boundaries of the room—the true epitome of stereo audio reproduction.

By Thomas J. Norton

Jim Carrey, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Ed Harris. Directed by Peter Weir. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1. 102 minutes. 1998. 5.1 Dolby Digital (English), 2.0 Dolby Surround (English and French). Paramount Home Entertainment 03091, PG. $19.99.

Picture ****
Sound ***1/2
Program ****

It isn't giving away much to reveal the basic premise of 1998's The Truman Show: Paramount did as much in their trailers. By now you probably know the plot of this terrific serio-comic fantasy, now made even more appealing by this outstanding new DVD transfer. The film's first DVD release was a mediocre effort that came out shortly after the movie finished its theatrical run. At the time, Paramount was one of the studios holding back on using the anamorphic (enhanced) widescreen format for their DVDs, and the line structure of that earlier conventional-letterbox release is vividly evident, particularly on today's larger projection displays—front or rear. If you're just recovering from a seven-year amnesia episode and this film is new to you, you might enjoy it more if you avoid those trailers, water-cooler discussions, the back cover of the DVD packaging, and the next two paragraphs. None of this will spoil the film for you—the "secret" is revealed early on (too early, actually). But I've always felt that the viewer would have been better served by being left in the dark for at least the first act. That might have made it harder to promote, but in 1998, a Jim Carrey film could be launched into the stratosphere with well-placed Post-It notes.

Truman Burbank, the film's title character, is the subject of an around-the-clock, wildly successful TV reality show (eerily foreshadowing today's TV reality-show craze, still several years away when this film came out). But Truman doesn't know that his life is a scripted fake, and that everyone he knows—even his wife, his mother, and his best friend—are actors. It would have been fascinating to learn how the extended exposure of these actors to the situation—and to Truman—affected them and their "real" lives. But that's a story idea for a mini-series or even an extended TV series, not a 2-hour feature film. We do get a hint of it in a brief but moving scene between Truman and his best friend, Marlon, who appears barely able to contain a lie, and clearly hates having to do it.

In short, Truman has lived his entire 30 years in an immense, domed TV soundstage, accepting, as one character puts it, "The reality with which he is presented." The viewer is free to read as much metaphysical symbolism into the film as he or she can imagine; the wonder of The Truman Show is that it may be enjoyed on many different levels.

End of spoiler. If you've avoided this movie because you don't like Jim Carrey, don't. Carrey proved himself a fine actor with this part, and he holds the show together with nary a trace of his famous rubber-face (though it does turn up in a few places, if you look closely). He's perfect for the role of a likable, ordinary guy who doesn't know as much about his life as he thinks he does. In my opinion, this is easily Carrey's best film to date. The rest of the cast is outstanding, too, particularly Ed Harris, who steals many of the final scenes as a character with a serious God-complex.

The transfer on the original DVD release wasn't awful, but it did leave a lot to be desired. Not this one. Apart from a few scenes with slightly odd color balance, and the occasional soft mid- or long-shot here and there, the overall result is crisp, clean, and colorful—one of the best-looking DVD releases of the year. The sound is exceptional—not in a spectacular way, but in a superbly natural one. To reiterate my comments on the original DVD release: "You don't expect a small comedy-drama to have a dramatic soundtrack, but you'd be very wrong here. Between the rich musical score, two storms, and many other interesting sounds, your home theater will welcome this respite from the usual action-film pyrotechnics."

The original DVD release was very skimpy with extras. This one has a superb, two-part "making-of" documentary, a feature on the visual effects, deleted scenes, a photo gallery, and theatrical trailers and TV spots.

The re-release, special-edition DVD mania has caught on big time in Hollywood, often just as an excuse to squeeze more money from a public eager to learn more about their favorite films. Here is a movie that really deserved a royal treatment, and finally gets one. Don't miss it.

By Scott Wilkinson

DisplaySearch, a leading flat-panel display (FPD) market-research and consulting firm, is holding their annual HDTV Conference on August 23-24, 2005, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. The two-day event, entitled The Future of Television and sponsored in part by Ultimate AV and Home Theater, will bring together representatives from across the TV spectrum and from across the globe, including TV and cable networks; satellite and cable providers; set-top box manufacturers; TV brands and OEMs; panel, imager, and projection-engine manufacturers; display-electronics suppliers; and financial and industry analysts. Industry leaders will present their respective market outlooks and identify challenges, obstacles, and opportunities in the $84 billion TV market as it makes two shifts: from standard definition to HDTV, and from CRTs to thinner form factors.

According to DisplaySearch President and CEO Ross Young, "The TV industry and HDTV infrastructure are undergoing rapid change for many reasons. 1080p resolution is becoming widely available on microdisplay RPTVs in Q3'05, prospects for a single next-generation DVD standard are improving, and HDTV set prices are reaching new lows, At the same time, there is significant uncertainty, so this is an ideal time to bring all aspects of the TV industry together to discuss the future of television."

To help generate consensus among the attendees on controversial and challenging issues, DisplaySearch will bring back real-time audience polling, which was so popular at last year's event.

New this year, HDNet will record the conference and broadcast it in a schedule to be announced in September. "HDNet's viewers represent a critical target audience for our industry—the early adopter and market influencer," says Young. "As a result, this event represents an unparalleled opportunity for sponsors and speakers to get their message across to high-end consumers who may influence more and more HDTV purchases."

"We are excited to include the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference in our programming lineup this fall, as this important industry event will help to educate consumers about advances in HD technology," adds Mark Cuban, co-founder and president of HDNet.

For agenda details and to register online, click here.