
Stereo Separation, Subwoofers, and Headphones (2008) - Pistos2
http://alienryderflex.com/stereo_separation/
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arielweisberg
Thousands of dollars on speakers and a clean listening environment with one
sweet spot. Or a few hundred on headphones and an amp.

I know which I picked. The author doesn't include listening environment in the
analysis. It is insightful to point out that the degree of separation provided
by headphones is extreme and there is a conflict there between how audio is
mastered and how it is delivered. Not sure how much of that can be fixed at
the point of delivery.

When I seriously did multiplayer FPS gaming I always used headphones. The
original Unreal engine had excellent spatial positioning, but didn't seem to
implement much in the way of occlusion. Felt good being accused of using a
radar.

~~~
FuriouslyAdrift
While I love my headphone listening (I have become addicted to the Grado
sound), if I ever go back to being a homeowner I'm going down the route of
linear array speakers. The whole room is the sweet spot. It's really creepy /
fun.

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alricb
Nitpick: often we refer to "omnidirectional" bass because, given that
subwoofers are usually much smaller than bass wavelengths (around 16 ft at 60
Hz), they have an omnidirectional radiating pattern.

Live sound is usually highly artifical, with the heavy use of compression, EQ,
effects, and a very exagerrated bass. For instance, all reverb is usually
digital, because instruments and singers have to be close-miked to avoid
feedback. Also, past a certain venue size, it's better to mike guitar
amplifiers rather than make them louder or add more of them, since their
radiation pattern gets very narrow at high frequencies, resulting in a "pick
to the forehead" effect for the people standing directly on-axis and a muffled
sound for the rest of the audience.

~~~
simoncion
My brain's probably just not working correctly today, but:

> Also, past a certain venue size, it's better to mike guitar amplifiers
> rather than make them louder or add more of them...

By "guitar amplifiers" do you mean "loudspeakers being fed the signal from a
guitar and amp"? Also, I assume that miking the amps would let you feed that
signal into your master sound system where you could mix it and distribute it
across the venue's loudspeakers as required? (Whereas adding _more_ amps would
just mean more speakers on stage?)

~~~
earlz
uhh.. yes. You don't normally hook the guitar amp directly up to the
loudspeakers of the venue because the speaker cabinet hooked to an amp imparts
almost as much tone and color as the amp itself. (if you've ever used
headphones hooked directly up to a guitar amp, it's quite painful and harsh
because of this)

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frankus
The author doesn't really address one of the most important mechanisms that
human ears use to determine direction: the delay between a sound wave reaching
the "near" and "far" ear.

You can try this with headphones, by playing an identical recording in both
ears, but delaying one by about 1 millisecond (I set this up back in college
on my BeBox).

You'll perceive the sound as coming entirely from the non-delayed ear, at
least until you take that side of the headphones off, at which point you can
once again perceive that it's also playing in the delayed ear.

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matthewmcg
Certain recordings seem to have too much stereo separation on headphones and
they sound unnatural (this effect is discussed in the article). There are a
variety of analog and digital methods for adding in a small amount of
"crossfeed"[1] to reduce this effect and make headphone listening more
comfortable.

[1]

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mschuster91
> To make a truly “natural” live recording, it might be necessary to use two
> microphones mounted on opposite sides of a roundish, human-head-sized,
> sound-dampening object.

Not exactly, you will want 3d-modeled earlobes as only the reflections, delays
and echos caused by them allow proper omnidirectional (front-behind) hearing.

edit: also, sound-dampening the head, e.g. making it out of foam, will
diminish a natural reception as a part of our sound reception is that
soundwaves from one ear get transmitted by our head bones and "material", as
well as through vibration via the ground and the bones of the legs. A truly
natural recording is very difficult.

~~~
jdietrich
Such a thing already exists and is commercially available from several
manufacturers. Dummy heads are used primarily in acoustic test facilities, but
have seen some use for specialised binaural recordings.

The problem with binaural recording is that the resulting stereo field sounds
highly unnatural when replayed on loudspeakers. The overwhelming majority of
modern recordings and mixes are a compromise between stereo and binaural
playback.

[https://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=...](https://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=ku100_description)
[http://www.bksv.com/Products/transducers/ear-
simulators/head...](http://www.bksv.com/Products/transducers/ear-
simulators/head-and-torso/hats-type-4128c?tab=overview)

