Comparison of the width of sound sources in 2-channel and 3-channel sound reproduction

摘要

In this paper, we present the result of listening tests where the width of the sound stage was compared between conventional 2-channel stereophony and 3-channel reproduction with an additional centre loudspeaker. When listeners were seated at the axis of symmetry, there was no significant difference between the two cases. On the off-axis positions there was a clear trend that the perceived image width of the noise is influenced by the way an additional interfering stimulus is reproduced, which was found to depend on the correlation of the noise. The results suggest that the spatial attribute of one sound image may be affected by another, for which possible explanations based on the principles of binaural hearing will be discussed.