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RE: Early reflections: 5 ms time window for sound source localisation?

Posted by KlausR. (A) on July 9, 2010 at 22:04:09

In Reply to: RE: Early reflections: 5 ms time window for sound source localisation? posted by tomservo on July 8, 2010 at 09:20:02:

Hi,

>Ideally, what you want to arrive at your ears is the signal the voice coil produced with everything that followed (via reflection / diffraction / resonance) held to a minimum or ideally not existent if it wasn’t part of the electrical signal.<

Ideally yes, but is it really necessary? As it is the case for cabinet edge diffraction, one can always play safe and reduce the level of early reflections to below perception thresholds, which, at -18 to -25 dB re: direct sound, are quite low, so getting there seems to be quite difficult.

I haven't seen research that confirms the claim that early reflections are bad as a matter of principle. I made the outdoor experiment with my small Genelecs. I made an indoor experiment where I placed the Genelecs on our dining table, and placed room doors against the table to generate lateral reflections. Listening nearfield I could not hear a difference in imaging (same tracks from EBU SQAM, Chesky JD37). If there was coloration, it was not strong, I didn't notice anything unusual. According to Toole reflection treatment may be beneficial if the speakers have odd-looking off axis response. Seems as if I'm lucky and my speakers behave well in that respect, both (main and desktop) are designed to avoid cabinet edge diffraction.

Outdoor vs indoor listening: indoor you have a reverberation time, which may, or may not, have an effect. What is known is that reveberation has an effect on absolute detection levels of reflections, but apart from that?

>Any wonder most loudspeakers don’t sound “real”?.<

I think that the main reason for this is the, compared to loudspeakers, very different radiation patterns of acoustical instruments, in combination with the direcionality of human hearing.



Klaus

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