Originally Posted by
Sherwood
This thread has reminded me of an incident back in the 80's. I was re-arranging my hifi layout and (lazily) trying to reconnect a pair of speakers with my amp in situ. By mistake (AND DO NOT DO THIS YOURSELF) I connected the first pair of speakers across the two +ve terminals. I was playing a Carly Simon LP at the time and was astounded at the sound that emerged. Since it was playing the difference between the two stereo tracks, the main part of the track was cancelled out and in it's place the backing vocals took prominence with James Taylor sounding as if he was at the end of a tunnel. I played another dozen or so albums and found the effect was inconsistent but in general was most pronounced on naturally recorded albums with a good (wide and deep) sound stage. I wonder if this is linked to spatial imaging in some way?
Geoff
What you had in fact achieved there was a form of the pseudo quadraphonic Hafler circuit for speakers, albeit with your speakers at the front. This used the out of phase information on recordings to add an ambience to the sound. Done right, with high impedance drivers, it was quite effective.
As shown, this best tried only with common neg amps and the impedance has to be considered. I used to do it just with 16 ohm tweeters at the rear, coupled by series capacitors and with commoned negs going to amp neg via a pot. Tweeters work fine on their own at the rear, as they provide most of the directional and ambient information.
It is impossible for anything digital to sound analogue, because it isn't analogue!