* "PrinceGaz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Tue, 29 Feb 2000
| We have two ears, a left and a right ear, so what advantage can be
| gained by using more than left and right speakers / headphones?
That is an excelent question.
You can visually locate an object in 3-dimensional space primarilly because
you have two eyes (there are exceptions, and I am one of them, just deal
with the oversimplification). The reason you can do this is due to a
phenomenon called "parallax", quoting from m-w.com: "the apparant
displacement or the difference in apparant direction of an object as seen
from two different points not on a straight line with the object." That
is, your two eyes and the object form a triangle that your brain can use to
approximate size and distance.
You can locate the source of a sound anywhere around you based on a kind of
"audio parallax". When your brain tells you, "that sound came from behind
and to the left," it is because your ears hear the sound at slightly
different times and at slightly different volume. That is, your left ear
heard the sound slightly before and slightly louder than your right ear.
With a 5.1ch arrangement (center, left and right satellites, left and right
rear, and a subwoofer), a sound can be placed practically anywhere in a
360-degree arc. If you are watching a movie from the Hero's perspective
and the Bad Guy cocks a gun behind the Hero's left ear, you hear the gun
being cocked behind your own left ear.
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