AES E-Library

Quality Assessment of Multichannel Sound Recordings

Five discrete channels of sound (3-front, 2-surround), accompanying visuals or working alone, are expected to produce dramatic improvements in the quality of viewing and listening experience over conventional matrixed Dolby Surround productions. However, the discrete multichannel productions thus far presented have failed to convincingly impress listeners. This paper reviews some of the factors which may be responsible for this lack of audible improvement and explores avenues for improving the perceptual quality of multichannel recordings. The improvements are dependent on the attributes of auditory image a multichannel sound is capable of invoking. Topics to be discussed include the spatial imaging restrictions of proposed loudspeaker configurations; increased capacity for image fusion, separation, and diffusion; the problems of compatibility with stereo; the difficulties in matching the audio and video image; the need for multichannel mixing tools; and the variability in consumer and professional monitoring setups.

Author: Woszczyk, Wieslaw R.
Affiliation: McGill University,Graduate Program in Sound Recording Montreal, Canada
AES Conference:12th International Conference: The Perception of Reproduced Sound (June 1993)
Paper Number:12-017 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Perception of Reproduced Sound

Click to purchase paper or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!

This paper costs $20 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers.

Learn more about the AES E-Library

E-Library Location: (CD aes18)   /2001upd1/procintl/1993co06/1491.pdf

Start a discussion about this paper!