The whole point of binauraul theory is that you don't necessarily need speakers in the floor to fool the ear into thinking the sound is coming from there.
A single speaker, a mono sound source - think old time radio - is a single dimension (1D). Add a second sound source and you have added a dimension - 2D. Add enough sources to fool the ears into hearing 360X360 degree sound, and we add several dimensions (3D, 5.1, 7.1, Multi-D). We can debate how many point sources are required to do this, but recent technology is doing very well. Just try switching on and off the 3D sound in a media player. On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Chris Dunford <ch...@covesoftware.com> wrote: >> You may technically be correct, but the problem comes when you include >> mono sound. You've jumped straight to stereo (2 channels) and declared >> it to be "1D". If so, then what do you call mono sound? > > Interesting question. When using headphones, mono sound appears to originate > from a point inside your head. A point has no dimensions, so I guess I'd > call it 0D. :) > > I think it works. Stereo sound appears to be placed along a line from left > to right; lines have one dimension. Surround sound appears to be placed on a > plane with you at the center point; planes have two dimensions. "3D" would > have to place the sound anywhere inside a cube or sphere with you at the > center. > > Eric is right when he says that with multichannel sound you can hear bad > guys sneaking up on you from behind. But what we don't have is sound that > allows you to hear bad guys dropping down on you from the level above. I > don't think this is technically impossible; we just don't have enough > channels. And putting speakers in the floor might be iffy. :) ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
