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In Reply to: RE: Measurements vs. Reviewers posted by rick_m on August 20, 2015 at 18:56:34
Stereo at best only manages localization along the horizontal axis
I've listened to many speakers, mostly tall line sources that do create a lifelike image height.
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"I've listened to many speakers, mostly tall line sources that do create a lifelike image height."
Me too, including my current ones. BUT I believe that that's due to the characteristics of our pinnae (and head-related transfer Fn. in general) along with the radiation patterns of our speakers rather than any sort of actual vertical positional data in the recording. There is simply no mechanism for the latter in normal stereo recordings. Now mind you that is NOT the case with binaural recordings experienced with headphones.
Try an experiment, generate some high frequency noise by rubbing your thumb and finger together (if you have dry skin like me, or rub a piece of paper if not) with your arm's dangling then sweep your arm along a forward arc to vertical while looking straight foreword. You will notice that the response peaks a little above your eyes (Leastwise mine does.) with near nulls when your arms are hanging down or overhead.
Since our brain believes our ears, it expects HF sound sources to be largely at our eye level since that's the response peak. A line source peaks at it's center as that's the only direction with symmetrical arrival times so that's where the sound "comes from". Soooo you hear HF coming from there regardless of it's direction at capture.
Regards, Rick
The most convicing theory I've heard of height perception from line sources is that the brain is timing the floor bounce. I'm not aware of experimental verification, though. In the case of point sources, the HRTF localizes in conjunction with head movement the sound to the height of the loudspeaker, overriding the recorded height cue, but in the case of a full-height line source the vertical image is in effect at infinity.
There are test signals you can use to test height , it's been sometime now but this was sold on a CD some decades ago, you have to control the reflections and this a Linesource Ribbon with wings does pretty well , you can hear up and across pretty easy.
A Large Panel like an ESL does not work well in this test for obvious reasons.
It seems to me it wold be easy to test with a reverb unit, just set a very short delay. Maybe I'll try it myself if I get a chance and report back.
Years ago, after reading an article somewhere, I tried listening to white noise on headphones while sweeping the notch filter on a distortion analyzer. Sure enough, the sound moved up and down, a consequence of the HRTF. Bet that technique would work with a line source, too -- it doesn't seem to be as idiosyncratic as some HRTF effects.
The LEDR test was developed by EASI , helps To have good vertical response ...
Thanks, fun test. Tried it on my computer speakers (old Monsoons) and the height didn't work very well, but the depth did. Then tried it with earbuds and the height worked well but the depth ended up pulling the sound *behind* my head. Will try it on the big line sources next, but probably not for another week since I have to assemble my new HTPC first.
Have to disagree i do get different recording heights from ( linesource) mine, never experienced such with a point source speaker . A pity Mags wont review linesource speakers anymore, maggies being the exception ..
Regards
Edits: 08/21/15
BUT I believe that that's due to the characteristics of our pinnae (and head-related transfer Fn. in general) along with the radiation patterns of our speakers rather than any sort of actual vertical positional data in the recording.Perhaps you read more into my comments than I intended. Some speakers provide a lifelike image size while mini monitors don't. Even mono images can sound real to me if not miniaturized. :)
I don't find any metric to quantify that (important to me) criteria.
edit: Regarding the number of channels used, I run Polk mini monitors in the HT system. It's Oppo 103 can play MC SACD recordings and I've got a couple of Telarc examples. While they sound nice and spacious, the MC thing cannot compensate for the vertical image compression as far as fooling me that the sound source is live.
Edits: 08/21/15
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