Sonic holography

At one time sonic holography was all the rage but now you hear nothing much about it. How does Bob Carver's Sonic Hologram generator work, what did it do, and how did it do it? Paul also shares his own patented invention, the Spatial Projector. Have a question you want to ask Paul? www.psaudio.com...
I am getting close to publishing my memoir! It's called 99% True and it is chock full of adventures, debauchery, struggles, heartwarming stories, triumphs and failures, great belly laughs, and a peek inside the high-end audio industry you've never known before.
I plan a few surprises for early adopters, so go to www.paulmcgowa... and add your name to the list of interested readers. There's an entire gallery of never before seen photos too.

[@curtisscott9251]

I have a Carver AVR100 receiver amp with sonic holography as a feature. Years ago I owned a C-9 Sonic Hologram Generator. In order to hear the effect well, you need to configure your listening space exactly as the manual describes. If you get that wrong - forget the rest. Sonic holography is heavily dependent on the nature of the Stereo (L-R) component of the recording you're playing back. But simply - when configured correctly, the right speaker is ONLY heard by the right ear and the left speaker is ONLY heard by the left ear. In normal stereo systems, each ear can hear & locate BOTH speakers spatially. Carver's use of active cancellation essentially masks the sound from the speaker that corresponds to the opposite ear. Once the sound-field is reduced to (2) sonic arrivals in the brain (1 from each ear) - the brain can accurately reconstruct the spacial information in the recording & restore the sound-stage of each instrument. This means that the end result is very dependent on the nature of the recorded sound. This is why sonic holography sounds awesome for some material & not other material. MICROPHONE PLACEMENT and mixing matter greatly.

[@davidkosa]

I love my Carver C-9 Sonic Holography generator. It can create an amazing soundstage with precise imaging, but not on all material. It comes with switch to run it direct and leave out the signal processing if it does not work with what you are listening to.

[@cactus00001]

When you use a Carver sonic hologram generator (SHG) with a pair of dipole ribbon speakers the effect is even more incredible, like being immersed in the performance rather than just listening from outside of it. The SHG effect creates both a deeper as well as higher & more 'forward' soundstage, i.e., in front of and above the normal speaker plane. The width of the soundstage is simply unbelievable.

[@bootsarmstrong8421]

I must have had a bad C-9 unit. It shifted the sound the one side. Didn't keep it. I have been using the Hughes AK 100 for years. It's more flexible. Makes the music come to life.

[@stevenkoski228]

Carver’s Holographic Generator was an extremely unique device. When I first auditioned it at my local dealer, it literally had my jaw on the floor in both amazement & disbelief! Using high quality phase coherent speakers were the key, my demo used huge flagship ADS tower models. It’s biggest drawback was it’s “sweet spot”, which was about 24” or less, where the listener needed to be seated. When the dealer switched it on (tape monitor loop), I could swear that a second set of speakers were playing about 3’-4’ outside of the main towers. The main speakers had the ability to project their own sound outwards believability! Perhaps one, if not the most unique HiFi gizmo ever created, & certainly one that I’ll never forget.

[@My-Pal-Hal]

I grew up in Edmonds. Spent a fair amount of time with the guys at Speakerlab, Speaker Factory,.. And Carver just down the street. Blah blah blah,.. Anyway. I still have a good amount of my Carver toys. And had a C-1 and CT-7 pre-amps with DBX equalizer, and 2 Carver Cubes. And 4 Peavey SP-2's of the time. Just Prefered them for their abilities to hit volumes that could sterilize small animals 😂. Anyway, again. I remember playing TIME, from Pink Floyds Dark Side Of The Moons ULTRADISC when it came out,.. Thru the Holograph. Close your eyes,.. And it was like Floating in a Room of Clocks. The holograph is awesome. No one could close their eyes and point at where the speakers were. Even though you knew where they were when you say down. Willy is Wicked Smart ☺

[@bryfar6178]

I'm finally an empty nester and got my stereo room back. Set up my carver amp / pre amp and emersing in the sonic holography. Some recordings have sounds coming from sides of the room. Almost scary sometimes, but so cool.

[@dhpbear2]

5:40 - I first heard about this method from Polk Audio back in the 80's. Each of their speaker systems had two sets of drivers one 'head-width' apart. the out-of-phase signal was sent to the outer set of drivers. This was touted to wide the sound-stage.

[@rollstuhlwolf]

Paul just created anecdotal holography in this video. Let me explain. The explanation begins with an anecdote about pine trees and ends with an explanation of S.a.p. (The acronym for his patented sound technology). Crossing stories about pine trees and holographic sound cancels the need for a bridge and instead creates a nearly three-dimensional look at how the Paul's mind tied together one idea with another. If he could have worked in something about the PS Audio Sprout it would have created a perfect trifecta of nature, sound theory and technology. Still, a pretty good unintentional fusion between pine trees and SAP. LOL

[@danielfontes6629]

Watching your video I seem to remember a curious thing about this process that someone mentioned years ago, that is, about the problem with it. It was in an article in one of the major audio journals back in the 80s and as I recall they mentioned the big problem with eliminating inter-aural cross-talk was the delay used to create this. Something about how ideally it would have to be infinite or nearly infinite, and that's why the person discussing the process said it was less than ideal. Thanks for reminding me of this Paul!

[@jcfelice88keys]

Hello Paul, The concept of Sonic Holography was also exploited in Matthew Polk's SDA (Stereo Dimensional Array) speakers of the late 1970's and early 1980's. I recall seeing Mr. Polk at more than one Summer CES in Chicago, where he was wearing his characteristic white lab coat, and being abnormally silent (not speaking to anyone, just walking around his display area, wearing heavy facial makeup and sporting a "deer-in-the-headlights" look of fear in his eyes). As I recall, the SDA processing of the time mimicked elimination of stereo crosstalk via an umbilical cord attached between his two loudspeakers, and included a delayed, out-of-phase signal from the opposite channel -- all intended to supposedly eliminate the perception of crosstalk as perceived by the listener. To the best of my knowledge, the SDA concept worked only marginally -- I sat in the supposed sweet spot of his speakers at more than one Summer CES in Chicago, and was not impressed. The most I may have heard was a widened sound stage, but there was no control sample with which to compare. As such, I never purchased any Polk products. (No, this is not a dissing of Polk products.) Keep up the great series of presentations you provide in your daily series. Cheers, Joe

[@kennethblackmore2146]

The Sonic Holography preamplifier is actually nice, the Carver amps that I bought in the 80's weren't even worthy to be called boat anchors. I bought a stack of 1.0's and 1.5's and took them to the club. Within 45 minutes, all were blown. That includes the ones that I had on my tweeters. I didn't even try to push them loud. That was one seriously disappointed salesman the next day.

[@My-Pal-Hal]

Bummer. I still have my Old Carver Cubes and 4 Peavey SP-2's of the time. And they STILL will sterilize small animals, and the unsuspecting Public. Still have all my Carver equipment, and lots of old Speakerlab stuff too. Never Blew Anything. Except the Structure Integraty of more than one building. You must have been doing something wrong.

[@bootsarmstrong8421]

@@My-Pal-Hal - yay! I still Carver amps 753x, 760x. I also have Speakerlab speakers (they need rebuilding).

[@basspig]

A lack of a phantom Center channel is probably a room Acoustics and loudspeaker setup problem. I have had my c4000 since February of 1980 and over the years my room has undergone acoustic treatment improvements. It is now at the point where a vocalist standing at the center stage is palpably at the center there's no sense that it's coming from anywhere else but the very center between the speakers.

[@bobnixon4015]

Polk used yet a different solution called SDA with your out of phase drivers identical but slightly inboard of the primary drivers. I guess it got too expensive to have double midrange and tweeter drivers. They do have that nice x-talk cancelling. And it's in the speaker system not a black box that has dubious effects on some music. These are more like big headphones.

[@motorradmike]

Bob Nixon, I had the “bookshelf” version of Polk SDA speakers. They sounded pretty good and had an expansive stereo image with the right music but a very narrow sweet spot. Your headphone analogy is perfect. I think Polk also had an enormous tower offering as their top of the line signature model. Thanks for reminding me what they were called.

[@kennethblackmore2146]

Polk called the towers the SRS (Signature Reference Series)

[@motorradmike]

Kenneth Blackmore, ahhh yes. They were monster speakers.

[@motorradmike]

Bob Carver was a brilliant engineer back in the Phase Linear days. I had his modestly priced power amp and his “Autocorrelator”. Talk about catchy names? In the ‘70s and ‘80, beside records, audio cassettes and FM music were the primary music sources. Bob’s Autocorrelator expanded the highly compressed recorded and broadcast music. If you were careful it worked surprisingly well restoring the apparent dynamic range of heavily compressed music. Polk Audio also dabbled in an attempt to expand the stereo image using left / right out of phase signal. I had the “bookshelf” model which had an interconnect wire between the left and right speaker. They were awkward in shape being a horizontal box with a pair of mid / base drivers flanking a single tweeter and a rear facing passive radiator positioned straight ahead precariously on their scrawny stands and NOT toed in. They worked well enough if you could manage to sit in the very narrow 2’ wide sweet spot. Pursuing the holy grail of perfect stereo imaging continues to be the bane of many of us erstwhile audiophiles. Cheers.

[@My-Pal-Hal]

Phase Linear days ??? You mean CARVER DAYS 😂. Still have most my Carver equipment I'm happy to say. And grew up in the Lynnwood area. Where Carver was. And our University District had Speakerlab and Speaker Factory. I got to spend time with them all. The 80's were Rockin around these parts 🤗 Cheers

[@barneywee514]

Hi Paul, thank you so much for doing the videos, it raises our music IQ.

[@Tom_Losh]

I still have my old Carver gear with the Sonic Hologram feedind a couple of Infinity RS series, and until a couple weeks ago also had Polk SDA speakers connected to my TV, which used, essentially, physical speaker arrangement to effect similar cancellation). When it worked it was fantastic, when it didn't it was usually because of the recording engineer doing totally weird things with his magic 48 track console ...

[@My-Pal-Hal]

Have my Carver stuff Too. And lots of Speakerlab goodies as well. Seattle was a Great Audio Place in the 80's. ...still have a 50lb DBX amp too, but don't tell anyone lol...

[@stupyvy]

I would not say, that Speakers have this Problem, but headphones do. I've built a little passive crossfeed for my headphones which i put before the amp to simulate this effect. It really increases the naturalness of the Sound, and Songs like "Black Hole Sun" from Soundgarden don't hurt your ears anymore...

[@mysock351C]

The Spatial Audio Projector looks like it would be great for a movie theater where you can have a special installation to accommodate it, but in the home it would end up being the Bose 901 on crack. Can see why that was ultimately abandoned. Not because it's necessarily a bad idea, but you have no control once it hits the floor of the showroom.

[@russredfern167]

Had one those Carver unit's . Still have the test record.

[@polardeathdog5093]

yeah, they are very hard to get rid of.

[@kennethblackmore2146]

Still have the C-1 preamp, hearing Pink Floyd through the system is mind blowing without the drugs..

[@russredfern167]

Kenneth Blackmore I miss some of the gear I had. Only a few survived. I'm not complaining about my Kenwood pre amp and power amp from 1988 , they are not the best sounding compared to some of the previous systems I had, just happy it all still works.

[@graxjpg]

The oaks here in south Texas cover everything in pollen during the early spring

[@martinpresseau4495]

What do you think of having a carver c-9 before preamp, along with a Dynaco Quadaptor (qd-1 IIL) for the speakers? Seriously, i've been using that for over 3 years now, people ask about how come my surround is so lively, and so wide, I tell them: it's only stereo, they do not believe it. What do you thin PS audio!?

[@toddlee2571]

Given the ever increasing market for bluetooth speakers, have you ever considered a BT version of your Acoustic Spacial Generator

[@Koendegraaf]

Hi Paul, while it sounds like cool stuff to play around with, does it actually solve a problem in audio reproduction? Does it bring you closer to a recording, like it was intended perhaps or is this more like added effects? Outside enhancements of the listening experience like turning down the lights or having a couple drinks is great. But when it comes to the audio-chain I guess I'm a bit more conservative. What do you think?

[@My-Pal-Hal]

I can tell you one memory I will Never Forget. The first time I played TIME, from Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon Ultradisc, and closed my eyes. You were literally Floating in a room of Clocks. Each one seeming as individual, and Virtual as the other. Like you could reach out and grab one. It was pretty wicked. Still have all my carver equipment, I'm Pleased to say 🤗

[@Sabbathead]

Hey Paul , just curious what you think of the Andrew Jones speakers that have been sold for quite some time under the Pioneer label ? Thanks

[@hot9dog]

Always a pleasure. Great video!

[@maxrockbin]

If you wire one of your speakers out of phase and play a mono signal, you'll see the cancellation really doesn't work much at all. If it did, you wouldn't hear anything. So this process of putting a partial signal of the opposite speaker out of phase in the main signal (Great explanation! Thank you!), can't be too effective. The main effect is probably the cancellation that occurs in the wire as soon as you combine those two signals. It would have the effect of exaggerating the difference between the two signals (a sort of difference or correlation filter). It's a lot like the noise cancellation in an XLR cable only with the opposite speaker signal.

[@My-Pal-Hal]

Oh. You have no FN Idea my friend. And as mentioned, certain tracks really show what the holograph can do. Still have most of my Carver equipment,.. And grew up just down the street. But one track I will never forget. Was playing TIME from Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon on ultradisc. When you closed your eyes, you were literally Floating in a room of clocks. An out of body experience without drugs,.. Man 🤣. You should check out some of the things and reviews of Bob Carver in the day. His stuff is Legendary.

[@emo65170.]

Interesting. Are you hinting at a PS Audio and Sunfire or Carver collaboration? Hehe

[@gamerpaddy]

i should try reproducing this using a dsp. cant find any carver audio thingy on sale.

[@My-Pal-Hal]

EBay. I have extra Carver Pre-amps. But I can't bring myself to let them go 🤣

[@unixd0rk]

i have been running a center channel from the positives for each channel for decades. not only does it widen the sound stage, it deepens it. it does not sound very good with poor recordings - but who wants to listen to those?

[@carlitomelon4610]

I tried that decades ago with a rear center speaker ;-)

[@doylewayne3940]

ps audio holographic speakers, awesome. thanks Paul. I saved for 10years for the Bob Carver box but by then my kids needed stuff, oh well, i'm the last in line.

[@normanbott]

Really fascinating Paul. It's not something I've encountered in my reading so far - still got some more to do haven't I ?

[@chrisvinicombe9947]

Norman Bott yeah I've never heard of these devices either.

[@My-Pal-Hal]

Oh, you poor guys ☺. The Holograph, and Carver in general, we're the Berries. Still have most of mine. And was lucky enough to be from Lynnwood. Long story short. (I've mentioned in more than one thread now : ) I will always remember the first time, and each time, I played TIME, from Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon ultradisc. And Closed my Eyes. You were literally floating in a room full of Clocks. Each as individual and virtual as the next. Like you could reach out and grab one out of the air. It was an out of body experience without drugs 🤣. Still have my carver equipment I'm pleased to say... Carver Cube amps are 10 inches square, and 10lbs. And were rated at 201 watts a channel RMS, at 8 ohms from 10-100khz. And .05 distortion. And mono bridged at 500 watts. I still have TWO straight from the creators hands ☺

[@mostirreverent]

he had an ambience output on the Phase Linear 2000 Series Two Preamplifier

[@My-Pal-Hal]

Bob Carver was Phase Linear Too 🤣

[@altops4490]

Well I guess I'll try to answer th other half of the question, in that why some recordings dont work well, and because of atypical phasing which doesn't comply with your equipment.

[@maartenc6099]

What you describe sounds like what philips used to do with spatial stereo.

[@baodu7768]

Hi Paul can you please explain what is the different between Emotiva DR 2 amp to your Stellar amp , I been thinking to get 2 Stellar M700 but not too sure of the different in technology and performance between the two products

[@60zeller]

Bao Du get both, try them out for a couple weeks. Keep the winner.

[@captaincinema5066]

Unfortunately, in real life, the time differential with sounds arriving at the ears at slightly different naonseconds it natural and the way we are SUPPOSED to hear sound. When we sit in a concert hall, the sound from the orchestra arrives at slightly different times at each ear; Nature doesn't eliminate sound that arrives at the opposite ear, in fact, it is the way we perceive dimensional, binaural sound. To eliminate it simple is creating an unnatural audio experience. Call it what you will, and they have been using this technique of phase manipulation to create artificially widened stereo space since the late 70s and the marketing departments of the equipment manufactures have been banging their heads against the wall to come up with sexy selling names that mean nothing and all pretty much do this phase manipulation, some adding a little bass eq some adding boost in the mid range and ALL really just adding artifacts to the recorded music that never was there in the first place, that's why the names tell you nothing about what the thing is doing, hence Aaron Fowler question -- "What is Sonic Holography? And you can ask the same question about all the other "enhancers" of the time with idotic names: SCI's "Dimensional Enhancer," BBE's Aural Exciter, Bellari's SE560 "Sonic Exciter Sound Enhancer" and many more, plus all the Quadraphonic decoders which -- talk about getting a wider stereo fields -- was able to route that out-of-phase audio that is captured in all recordings, to the two rears speakers and put widen the ambient audio behing you. Mind you, I am not TOTALLY knocking this type of manipulation -- NOTHING about hearing is absolute; what pleases one person another may find intolerable. So if pushing the IN button on a Carver (call it what you will, but it's an audio processor just like an EQ is a processor; there is nothing holographic about it); just like a phase matrix is a processor) makes what you are listening too sound more pleasant to your ears, then go for it, but just like any other manipulation of the playback, you are introducing components that were not there in the recording or even the live event. A purist audio engineer, would say that is exactly what a sound system is NOT supposed to do. Then again, the ultimate authority on that score are the ears and taste of the listener.

[@polarbear7577]

Have you listened much

[@derbigpr500]

This sounds like the opposite of what you'd want on speakers, because you're cancelling out the natural behavior of the brain as it puts the sounds you hear together and creates a spacial image. It's the biggest advantage of speakers over headphones apart from the physicality of sound. It's exactly why headphones don't have the same sense of directional precision and soundstage as speakers do , and why headphone amplifiers sometimes have crossfeed circuits built in to make them sound more like speakers. Funny how people tried to make speakers sound more like headphones.

[@russmaleartist]

Like your closing theme for some reason . . . .

[@chuckdennhardt1121]

I'm pretty sure I saw the spatial projector on a Star trek episode lol

[@whatonearthamito]

so some people talk about eliminating this effect, while others want to add it to their headphones... what gives???

[@kautkascitadaks]

So the opposite of what cross-talk tries to do for headphones. this is to make speakers sound more like headphones. Basically as I understand great headphones will always be better then great speakers...

[@polarbear7577]

still better than Dolbly surround IMHO

[@BlankBrain]

Just center your head in a baffle. Perhaps uncomfortable, it should nonetheless do the trick. Call it the Mohawk Sound Separator.

[@SVSpc13]

Sonic holography something like Q-sound ?

[@polardeathdog5093]

similar, yes. All piles of shit.

[@RoboticusMusic]

Can't just do this with a plugin?

[@MrTruth111]

yes I have the good ol WinAmp, has a fairly good crosstalk plugin, hard to find. I once fooled a friend with it. He said my God your system has good synergy:) You can't believe the centre focus it brings playing Dire Straits. It has some decent settings, speaker distance, distance between speakers, number of crosstalk can. dB etc.

[@RoboticusMusic]

Wow I didn't know that existed for WinAmp. I stopped using it around the time AOL bought it out.

[@MrTruth111]

But actually you dont need a plugin. You can make custom tracks in any sound (wave) program. Just copy and invert and paste channels and finetune the delay and gain. Total fun. On my desk I have a nearfield setup, and it is scary, sounds come straight from the back ocasionally and sounds come from beyond the speaker frequently.

[@RoboticusMusic]

So take original track, copy, invert copy, adjust delay of copy in milliseconds, adjust volume of copy, depending on sitting position?

[@MrTruth111]

Yes, copy the entire track and invert the polarity (flip), then copy the left track and paste it on the original right channel, most soundprograms have a mixing paste function allowing you to specify the gain, I usually have between -8 or -12 dB for the inverted track. Just play with it, you will figure it out. Also you can fiddle with the frequencies where you leave the bass (to 120hz unaffected), and if you practice and find this all difficult, you can leave the delay for later attempts, because crosstalk cancelation also works quite well without delay.

[@tormaid42]

Why is crosstalk bad? When you hear a “real” sound it reaches both ears. If anything, it’s headphones that are unrealistic.

[@kwacked1]

tormaid, HeadRoom used to make a bunch of different headphone amps that I used to read about. I remember they had a switch to add some of that crosstalk to improve the soundstage.

[@Hare_deLune]

falchulk You are thinking of a device called a 'Fritz'. The technique is called 'Binaural Recording'. Edit: It is related to, but not the same thing that Paul is talking about.

[@Hare_deLune]

falchulk Ah, right! Binaural recordings are amazingly three dimensional and realistic. Also, I believe they are easy to find on KZbin if you want to check them out. Just remember that they are made specifically for headphone listening. : )

[@motorradmike]

falchulk , they do sound pretty amazing through ‘phones.

[@CrackerboxPalace777]

Strictly speaking, the proper term is “Holophony”

[@polardeathdog5093]

it's called fucking with the stereo signal.

[@MrTruth111]

PS Audio = Pine Stuff Audio :)

[@nickparkin8527]

@1:23

[@coldfinger459sub0]

sounds like you had a early version of the Atmos system