BBC Surround Sound Experiment
Fri, Dec 23 2011, 1:38PM
I was very interested to read about this on the site yesterday and gave the binaural tests a go via my laptop last night. I do a reasonable amount of headphone listening on some very good Beyer 'phones.
My initial reactions were that there were very few obvious differences between the various recordings, perhaps because I was expecting something startling rather than the (to my ears) very subtle variations experienced.
As for the 'surround sound' effect itself, it didn't really work for me. There was a palpable sense of an acoustic space, but not significantly more than on several very well recorded stereo discs. I recall being similarly rather disappointed when binaural first came on the scene some years ago. And there is still, it seems to me, as complete a lack of frontal aural information as there is on normal stereo recordings.
It would be interesting to hear what others think.
Just a thought and a bit of a long time since you posted this. I've only just joined this forum.
In stereo reproduction, the ambient part of the soundfield, not part of the front, main sound stage recorded, is reproduced projected onto the percieved front sound stage by your loudspeakers. If one gets used to this effect then hear the same ambient information apparently emanating from its proper direction it can sound unfamiliar or dryish from the front and more ambient from these other directions. The only reference would be the original recording venue, to which few people would have access for comparison. Further complicating factors would be the microphone technique used and the recording engineer's preferences, amongst other things.