Listening rooms impose their own acoustics on top of recorded sound

Evidence

For the home listener or a sound engineer in the control room of a studio, the ideal would be an acoustic that allows them to “listen through” the system to the original acoustical environment that the sound was recorded in. Unfortunately, the room in which the recorded sound is being listened to is usually much smaller than the original space, and this has the effect shown in Figure 7.19. Here, the first reflection the listener hears is due to the wall in the listening room and not the acoustic FIGURE 7. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2278

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the concept of ‘listening through’ a system to the original acoustical environment.
• XREF: connects to: Recording methods and cues for stereo are chosen independently of the listening arrangement. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 754; Room acoustics act as a second system cascaded after the instrument — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1059; The precedence effect makes the listening room’s first reflections mask the recorded hall’s acoustics — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 2267