Ambiophonic Stereo - is it really that good?

I heard about the ambio mode that was present on many old B&O receivers recently, and I’ve since admittedly become slightly obsessed with the idea. So much so that I’ve considered investing in an old Ambiophonic Stereo Adapter. I’m just wondering if anyone here can attest to what it actually sounds like? I’ve always been perfectly happy with standard stereo, and never taken an interest in source devices which support surround, so this concept seems like a perfect in between to me. Hoping someone here can shed some light on the subject.

-Joshua

Hi Joshua,

I tried the ambio facility on my Beomaster 4400 some years ago with S45.2s as the main speakers and Beovox 1702s as the ambio speakers. I found the sound from the 1702s offered some filling out of the overall soundstage on some recordings and indeed on some live FM broadcasts. This was principally on classical recordings from good recording locations/concert halls and my sense was that it worked best with simple recording techniques from the early days of stereo rather than with the multi- microphone techniques used in the more modern recordings of the 70s and later. However I would stress this was my experience with my musical tastes and my listening room. Others’ experience may be very different.

Cleve

I permanently use an Ambio box with my Beomaster 8000. I chose S45 speakers for that function.

It does bring a sense of atmosphere.

It’s fake but quite pleasant.

Ambiophonic is the same thing as what was called Hafler Dynaquad. I made one of these boxes about 40 years ago and also found an old Dynaco box later I played with. What this does is take connect the positive speaker level signals, Right + and Left + to a pair of rear speakers (usually attenuated some), which are then outputting the difference between the two channels, L - R. The original Dolby Surround was this for the rear channels with a 20 millisecond delay applied, which then evolved to this plus a L+R as a center channel.

As Cleviebaby points out, it generally works best with simple recordings, two mics, in a place that has real reverb and acoustic space, like a concert hall recording as opposed to a studio album or multi-mic'd recording, but it depends a lot on the recording. I've heard some pop/rock tracks that use a lot of phase manipulation produce interesting effects

Worth experimenting with to see if you like it, it's inexpensive and fun. I didn't wind up using it much at the time.

It is quite spectacular on church organ music, usually recorded with just two mikes.

Sounds fun- not so much inexpensive. Is there a cheaper solution than buying the official B&O adapter?

I dont have any kind of adapter. Just two old Philips SQ5060 speakers connected together via - tabs and from + tabs to Rl+ and Lf+ on amp side.

 

Edit: Correction, I do have B&O adapter, but not in use because I too lazy to adapt my wiring to fit it :D

Is there any way you could send a diagram or some other visual aid? I’m somehow too stupid to decode what you mean here, ahah

Orava:

Thanks so much! Just to be clear, if I wanted my ambio speakers to be wired to my speaker B terminals (so as to make the whole system toggleable) would I have to short the 2 negative terminals?

Only + from amp, speakers negative connected together