Directional coincident microphones suppress room reverberation, killing sense of space

Evidence

However, these techniques have been characterized to lack a ‘sense of space’ (Streicher and Dooley, 1985). One reason for the weak perception of space is that the microphones are directional and are directed typically towards the instruments. The effect of the room, in turn, arrives evenly from all directions, and thus the directional pattern effectively reduces the level of reverberation in the recording. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1840

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains mechanically why coherent/coincident techniques sacrifice spatial ambience.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing knowledge of room acoustics/reverberant field levels from the telephony discussion at location 1833. — connects to: Microphone construction determines directional sensitivity patterns like cardioid and dipole; Popular recording microphones vary significantly in high-frequency and directivity performance; Directional hearing-aid microphones improve speech-in-noise SNR by over 7 dB. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1735 (+6 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1840

Broader Connections

• Microphones become more directional at higher frequencies, darkening off-axis reverberant sound #expands (0.85) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2430
• Microphone directivity in impulse response recording controls perceived reverberation amount #expands (0.80)