Listener-level channels, not height channels, drive spaciousness and envelopment

Evidence

The addition of height channels in immersive systems changes things, but it depends on how the recording engineer chooses to use the additional channels. Here we are talking about baseline perceptions from listener-level channels. These are the most responsible for spaciousness and envelopment in multichannel music, movie music soundtracks, general “room” sound, audience sounds, etc. Getting them handled properly is the primary task. Overhead “objects” floating around will take care of themselves, as it is not likely that listeners will care much about their sound quality, even if they think they know what it should be. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 848

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is a strong, arguably contrarian claim about immersive audio — worth verifying against perceptual experiments on height-channel contributions to envelopment.
• SEED: An article angle: ‘why your Atmos system’s sound quality barely matters compared to getting the bed channels right.’