.. was Somting for the Weekend - Commerisal 3D sound > Sure, the center phantom image generated as a sum of two identical L/R > signals sounds a little different. But little is the operative word. ... Most > people do not notice this at all.
It's not that we don't notice but that we are so used to it that we think it 'natural'. Most people who hear a Classic Ambi rectangle rig for the first time with the Super Stereo decodes, suddenly become aware of this and it is irritating. That's not to say, Ambi decode is faultless; just significantly better than stereo in this respect. The senior members of BLaH are investigating this. > I say most people because a small number of people hear individual speakers no matter what you do. Michael told me that up to 10% of the population 'suffer' from this. I didn't believe him but looked up his reference which confirmed it. I've forgotten the reference so would appreciate anyone who knows this. >From nearly 2 decades of Blind Listening Tests, I can confirm this is about >right for one small esoteric population ... UK HiFi reviewers. These people are not deaf but in fact, more discriminating than the unwashed masses. They are not easily fooled. > I think the speakers are audible in stereo because of the "detent" effect. If > you keep the images between the speakers where they belong, most people do > not hear the speakers at all. Actually keeping images ONLY between the speakers is what draws attention to them. This is one advantage of Blumlein fig-8s. The soundstage and reverb extends seamlessly beyond the speakers. The most unstable phantom image is CF and sources close to it .. especially with wide speaker spacing. Easy to test all this for yourself if you have a mixer with panpots .. or even a preamp with mono button & balance control. Try it with noise as well as music. _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
