Phantom center dullness stems from destructive acoustical interference, not loudspeaker inadequacy
Evidence
The cause of the “dullness” in the phantom center image is destructive acoustical interference. The rest of the comb is not seen because at higher frequencies the whole situation is complicated by head related transfer functions (HRTFs) and rapidly increasing attenuation of the delayed sound at higher frequencies caused by head shadowing. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 418
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Headphones lack the phantom-center 2 kHz comb notch present in loudspeaker stereo (similarity 0.85)
- Stereo phantom center images have a spectrum dip near 2 kHz from interaural crosstalk (similarity 0.83)
- Phantom center image sound quality is inherently compromised even in the sweet spot (similarity 0.82)
- Wide-dispersion loudspeakers soften hard-panned images and reduce the center-image crosstalk dip (similarity 0.79)
- The phantom center image in stereo is always corrupted at the symmetrical sweet spot (similarity 0.79)
- Off-center listeners lose the phantom center image which collapses toward the nearer loudspeaker (similarity 0.78)
- The stereo phantom center image suffers an audible 2kHz timbre dip affecting speech intelligibility (similarity 0.78)
- Excessive rear-wall diffusion can destroy the stereo center image (similarity 0.78)
- Headphones lack the phantom-center timbre notch because no interaural crosstalk exists. (similarity 0.78)