Field type systems are NOT limited to two channel. If you consider the new paradigm of surround sound you can place sounds anywhere in the playback space without worrying about head related problems and crosstalk cancellation. Considering the total recording and playback throughput, surround sound systems such as Atmos deserve the most research.
All you are showing is that loudspeaker binaural works. This does NOT mean that the crosstalk is a "problem" with stereo. Hopelessly confuses stereophonic and binaural.
You are making an interesting point here. Is crosstalk a "problem" with regular 2 channel stereo? I'd say it depends. In my opinion, the phantom center is hopelessly transient smeared and tonally compromised with regular stereo due to strong comb filtering and the time doubling of each transient wave front at each ear that doesn't exist for tones panned to the side. That doesn't mean it sounds bad, just less than optimal. It's conceivable that some adjustment for this could be made during mixing and mastering, but that would not sound good at all on headphones, and I'm told by people in the industry that no such compensation attempts are applied because they don't know what each person's listening arrangement will be. On the other hand, sounds that are panned completely to one speaker or the other and intended to sound like they are coming from either speaker's direction will not suffer interference at all with regular stereo regardless of the listener's arrangement, but if crosstalk cancellation is effectively applied, these panned sounds will be perceived as coming from all the way to the left of the listener or to the right, widening the sound stage beyond what was intended. This can cause a strange feeling in the ears, as one reviewer described as a "tugging" at the ears. The canceled ear can suddenly feel very muffled and then unmuffled, almost as if something mechanical has happened right at the ears. The optimal sound distribution technique described in this video can be very effective, as the higher frequencies need to be closer together to prevent phantom center problems, while lower frequencies can be progressively further apart. The problem I'm finding in trying this is that when I pan left to right, the stereo width of the highs is not as wide as the width of the lows, which is as expected since the highs are physically close together. However, some crosstalk reduction using a physical barrier between the speakers but not all the way up to the listener's face can restore a normal soundstage width to the high frequencies while drastically reducing the normal stereo arrival time issues with the phantom center. Physical barriers suck for obvious reasons, but this sounds exceptionally good, and at least I can sit comfortably with the barrier and speakers a relaxed distance from my face, and below my viewing angle so I can watch TV. Mixing in delayed phase reverse signals to create crosstalk cancelation and/or using a third center speaker is something I've experimented with extensively, and in my opinion it works, but there are unavoidable sound quality compromises that I find limit the net gain over regular 2 speaker stereo enough to make it a tough call whether it's worth the extra complexity and expense. So in a nutshell, I think you are right - 2 speaker stereo works, sounds great, and is quite convenient. It has a fundamental audible flaw, so I have to question the extraordinary efforts the hifi world puts in to two channel systems. Their efforts do pay off, and I just heard the results of some great 2 speaker systems at the Pacific Audiofest. Better equipment and well treated rooms really make a difference, but the audible issues with the phantom center remain unless somehow directly addressed. So I get an impression of a very well polished turd. Or maybe a more suitable example would be an extremely polished and shiny paint job on a car that nonetheless suffers from noticeable orange peel effect.
@@timothylink4386 Interesting reply. Give me a few minutes... but it is NOT necessary to limit stereo to 2 channel. You can have a center speaker and you can have multichannel - which should be the standard anyway. Stereo was never supposed to be a speaker for each ear. That is not how it works. We are putting sound in rooms, not ears.
@@geickmei Yes, agreed. Stereo means "solid" or 3D. It has nothing to do with the number of channels, except you need at least two. I've heard the idea of dual channel recordings distinguished from stereo, and I think that's an important distinction. If instruments and vocalists are recorded in dry space and just panned to positions left to right in the soundfield, with some reverb added for effect, that is technically not stereo. There's nothing 3D or solid to it. It creates a line of sounds across the listening environment. This could be true even if 9 or more channels are used. If there are height channels you could make a wall of sound and it's still not stereo. It's 2D at that point. If you have speakers that are at various heights and distances as well as left to right, that's getting pretty 3D on playback even if everything is just panned hard to each speaker. You can get real stereo sound with just 2 speakers and 2 channels if the recording is made accordingly, and the playback environment is optimized. On such recordings, crosstalk reduction can often be a real benefit in my experience. On dual channel mixed and panned recordings the results with crosstalk reduction can be all over the place. Those were really intended to be heard in a normal speaker configuration without cosstalk reduction. Sometimes they can end up with strangely postioned instruments and sounds, perhaps excessively spaced all the way to the direct left or right, with a bizarre effect of not hearing them much at all in the opposite ear. A more naturally recorded track that has real stereophonic potential will never have extreme differences in level between channels unless a fly happens to buzz right next to one of the mics. I like a lot of studio mixed recordings. Some of them artifically add some pretty spacey effects, and I find those effects can often come across better with some crosstalk reduction. The fact that it's not all or nothing can be helpful. You can use a little or a lot of crosstalk reduction.
10/10 informative, thanks
Wonderful！
Field type systems are NOT limited to two channel. If you consider the new paradigm of surround sound you can place sounds anywhere in the playback space without worrying about head related problems and crosstalk cancellation. Considering the total recording and playback throughput, surround sound systems such as Atmos deserve the most research.
Looking forward to those speakers arrays to be commercially available
All you are showing is that loudspeaker binaural works. This does NOT mean that the crosstalk is a "problem" with stereo. Hopelessly confuses stereophonic and binaural.
You are making an interesting point here. Is crosstalk a "problem" with regular 2 channel stereo? I'd say it depends. In my opinion, the phantom center is hopelessly transient smeared and tonally compromised with regular stereo due to strong comb filtering and the time doubling of each transient wave front at each ear that doesn't exist for tones panned to the side. That doesn't mean it sounds bad, just less than optimal. It's conceivable that some adjustment for this could be made during mixing and mastering, but that would not sound good at all on headphones, and I'm told by people in the industry that no such compensation attempts are applied because they don't know what each person's listening arrangement will be. On the other hand, sounds that are panned completely to one speaker or the other and intended to sound like they are coming from either speaker's direction will not suffer interference at all with regular stereo regardless of the listener's arrangement, but if crosstalk cancellation is effectively applied, these panned sounds will be perceived as coming from all the way to the left of the listener or to the right, widening the sound stage beyond what was intended. This can cause a strange feeling in the ears, as one reviewer described as a "tugging" at the ears. The canceled ear can suddenly feel very muffled and then unmuffled, almost as if something mechanical has happened right at the ears. The optimal sound distribution technique described in this video can be very effective, as the higher frequencies need to be closer together to prevent phantom center problems, while lower frequencies can be progressively further apart. The problem I'm finding in trying this is that when I pan left to right, the stereo width of the highs is not as wide as the width of the lows, which is as expected since the highs are physically close together. However, some crosstalk reduction using a physical barrier between the speakers but not all the way up to the listener's face can restore a normal soundstage width to the high frequencies while drastically reducing the normal stereo arrival time issues with the phantom center. Physical barriers suck for obvious reasons, but this sounds exceptionally good, and at least I can sit comfortably with the barrier and speakers a relaxed distance from my face, and below my viewing angle so I can watch TV. Mixing in delayed phase reverse signals to create crosstalk cancelation and/or using a third center speaker is something I've experimented with extensively, and in my opinion it works, but there are unavoidable sound quality compromises that I find limit the net gain over regular 2 speaker stereo enough to make it a tough call whether it's worth the extra complexity and expense.
So in a nutshell, I think you are right - 2 speaker stereo works, sounds great, and is quite convenient. It has a fundamental audible flaw, so I have to question the extraordinary efforts the hifi world puts in to two channel systems. Their efforts do pay off, and I just heard the results of some great 2 speaker systems at the Pacific Audiofest. Better equipment and well treated rooms really make a difference, but the audible issues with the phantom center remain unless somehow directly addressed. So I get an impression of a very well polished turd. Or maybe a more suitable example would be an extremely polished and shiny paint job on a car that nonetheless suffers from noticeable orange peel effect.
@@timothylink4386 Interesting reply. Give me a few minutes... but it is NOT necessary to limit stereo to 2 channel. You can have a center speaker and you can have multichannel - which should be the standard anyway. Stereo was never supposed to be a speaker for each ear. That is not how it works. We are putting sound in rooms, not ears.
@@geickmei Yes, agreed. Stereo means "solid" or 3D. It has nothing to do with the number of channels, except you need at least two. I've heard the idea of dual channel recordings distinguished from stereo, and I think that's an important distinction. If instruments and vocalists are recorded in dry space and just panned to positions left to right in the soundfield, with some reverb added for effect, that is technically not stereo. There's nothing 3D or solid to it. It creates a line of sounds across the listening environment. This could be true even if 9 or more channels are used. If there are height channels you could make a wall of sound and it's still not stereo. It's 2D at that point. If you have speakers that are at various heights and distances as well as left to right, that's getting pretty 3D on playback even if everything is just panned hard to each speaker.
You can get real stereo sound with just 2 speakers and 2 channels if the recording is made accordingly, and the playback environment is optimized. On such recordings, crosstalk reduction can often be a real benefit in my experience. On dual channel mixed and panned recordings the results with crosstalk reduction can be all over the place. Those were really intended to be heard in a normal speaker configuration without cosstalk reduction. Sometimes they can end up with strangely postioned instruments and sounds, perhaps excessively spaced all the way to the direct left or right, with a bizarre effect of not hearing them much at all in the opposite ear. A more naturally recorded track that has real stereophonic potential will never have extreme differences in level between channels unless a fly happens to buzz right next to one of the mics.
I like a lot of studio mixed recordings. Some of them artifically add some pretty spacey effects, and I find those effects can often come across better with some crosstalk reduction. The fact that it's not all or nothing can be helpful. You can use a little or a lot of crosstalk reduction.