Audio Vanity
In the quest for absolute fidelity we find ourselves running into an impenetrable barrier. Between recording techniques and playback there is little possibility of perfectly recreating an acoustic event. Think about it. Trying to reproduce the sound of a full orchestra playing in a 2000 seat concert hall, or a rock concert in a 20,000 seat stadium, in a domestic room of perhaps 200 square feet, is hubristic arrogance. But, how close can we get to creating the illusion of fooling our ears into believing? What are the means of producing that illusion?
There are many theories about how to accomplish this. Some are more complex than others. The problem itself is extremely complex—to the point of invoking chaos theory. Every proposed method is to a degree a simplification of the task, and necessarily so. How far are we willing to go to solve the problem, and at what point do these efforts start slipping into a obsessive pursuit of diminishing returns, or more commonly, zero return? It's obvious that stereo is a poor approximation. It needs to cover a lot of territory, the direct sound, hall reverberation, and the location/distance cues of sound coming from every direction. No matter how good the recording or playback systems are, squeezing all of that into two channels and putting all of it in front of the listener will never truly fool the ear. Instead of trying to do it from the view point of the source, what if it's done from the view point of the listener? Binaural recording captures sound from the subject's reference point. Theoretically this is the most exact way to recreate a live event because it records what a surrogate head hears at the point of the eardrum. Assuming binaural is the best method, immediate questions arise. Few recordings are made using the binaural technique. It has not made any headway. It requires earphone or headphone playback. Typical in-room speaker playback still sounds good, but it can't deliver the binaural effect. Of course, begging the question : why do we have to have playback with speakers? Earphones don't take any floor space, can reproduce the full audible spectrum with full dynamic range and extremely low distortion far, far more easily than full size speakers can. They don't need huge amounts of power. They can do it all with a single small driver. Multiple headsets can accommodate any number of people with individually controlled volume and no compromise in seating position channel balance or room interaction concerns. There is no disturbing others in adjacent rooms or the neighbors. Sounds like a winner. If we want background music, which isn't a critical listening situation, then inexpensive speakers could do the job. Think about it. For home cinema or serious music listening, use earphones; for casual listening use speakers. It solves or simplifies a multitude of problems, but it requires binaural recordings. Ordinary recordings can't capture the "I am there" reality. And there is the biggest problem. The industry is entrenched in standard recording techniques for stereo and multichannel cinema. A major shift in direction would be required. However, there's one more consideration. As accurate as binaural recordings are from the ear's point of view, there's something missing. A musical event isn't merely heard, it's also felt. Lower frequencies conduct through solid material. Even airborne low frequencies can be felt. Those vibrations go through our entire body. Loudspeakers can provide the airborne and structurally conducted vibrations. Although the ear's experience with binaural recording & playback may be near perfect, the rest of the body's experience is nil. So close, you can taste it; too bad the texture is missing. If we insist on trying to recreate an acoustic event in a room, we'll have to put more effort into it. A 7–channel arrangement seems to be a likely candidate, 3 channels front, 2 side, and 2 rear. But this would be the absolute minimum necessary to even begin to simulate a concert setting. It would require 7 full range channels of discrete information, 7 full range speakers and all the necessary amplification, peripherals and wires to go along with them. We're getting into a serious amount of equipment, cost, and complication. Are we really that serious or is this pursuit purely vanity? More on Binaural Recording & Binaural FAQs. back to the Observations main page.
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