(sound) Height w/o Height Speakers

[kfbkfb]

https://www.stereophile.com/features/772/index.html^^^
"It's hard to believe that a sound can appear to travel from a loudspeaker up to 6' above the speaker!"


I bought the Chesky CD in ~1990, using Polk Audio Monitor 4 speakers, Pioneer SX-2300 receiver,
Magnavox FD-3030 CD player (dual DACs), the sound actually did move from the speaker location
to above the speaker location and back.

As this predated perceptual coding, I plan to try the listening test again, my old PC has an MP3
encoder and my DVD recorder has a Dolby Digital encoder/decoder, I'm interested to hear if
the perceptual coding damages the height effect (if not, maybe this idea could be revived to
add height to [surround] sound without requiring actual height speakers).

https://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_ledr.php^^^
some test files


Kirk Bayne

 

[kfbkfb]

Made a Dolby Digital 2.0 (encoder in a circa ~2007 SV2000/Funai OEM
DVD recorder) copy and played both the Chesky LEDR CD and the DD
DVD copy thru the same (stereo) setup (SX-2300 and Monitor 4s).

The DD copy had noticeably less directional accuracy, but the sound
still did appear above the speakers.

I also made a VHS HiFi copy, but the sound chosen for the LEDR test
aggravated the inherent VHS HiFi head switching noise. Trying to
ignore this noise, the LEDR sound had poor directionality, although
the sound did seem to appear a little above the speakers.

I may try an MP3 encoding of the LEDR test, at both high and low
data rates, just to hear how this (potentially) distorts the directionality.


Kirk Bayne