To add a little:
At a NSS workshop, Lang Elliot showed how stereo representation of
recordings made with his modified SASS becomes more accurate with the
angle between the listener and the speakers at 120deg rather than the
usual 60deg. The 120 angle is wide enough that the listeners head
blocks the direct path of sound from the speakers to opposite ears -
thus preserving some of the binaural cues you get with headphones. I
assume this would hold true for other near-coincident with barrier or
binaural arrays using omnis.
John Hartog
--- In Rob Danielson <> wrote:
>
> Hi Curt--
> Lang Elliot has written elegantly on binaural-headphone issues-
> Bernie cites Lang's key argument in his book.
>
> What you describe makes perfect sense to me: a distant, freestanding
> speaker produces a more localized image (point of origin in space)
> than headphones. Cardioid polar patterns cover a smaller field than
> omnis. Matching speaker and micing separations can make these polar
> pattern spacing differences more or less apparent.
>
> I've always felt there's a micing/speaker separation trade-off:
> "stereo" as tending towards a comparison of two fields and "stereo"
> tending towards a unified field where sounders in the middle can be
> more predictably localized. Asking the ears/brain to compare two
> field with more difference between them can feel fuller and more
> engaging. ORTF at 13" captures a lot more timing and tonal difference
> than omnis at 6". Low Hz presence (125Hz-700Hz) can shift from
> speaker to speaker like waves bouncing and interacting in the field
> but its hard to sense this spatial quality, if at all, with
> headphones. I can walk around and function pretty normally in space
> listening only through binaural headphones where monitoring/moving
> around with a 13" card ORTF rig takes a lot more mental adjusting.
> Rob D.
>
> At 2:11 PM -0600 3/14/06, Curt Olson wrote:
> >So I'm casually reviewing some ambient field recordings today and it
> >dawns on me: Recordings that I've made using cardiods (in my case,
> >usually some ORTF variation) seem to translate better to my
> >loudspeakers than recordings I've made with omnis. ("Better" as in
> >richer, deeper, more spacious, more interesting.) The converse also
> >seems to be true: Recordings that I've made with omnis (in my case,
> >usually involving a small boundary and head-like spacing) seem to
> >translate better to headphones than those I've made with cardioids.
> >
> >Am I late in understanding something extraordinarily basic here? Could
> >my playback systems be deceiving me? Have I totally lost my judgment?
> >
> >Thoughts on this, anyone?
> >
> >Curt Olson
> >
> >
> >
> >"Microphones are not ears,
> >Loudspeakers are not birds,
> >A listening room is not nature."
> >Klas Strandberg
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Rob Danielson
> Film Department
> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
>
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