Timbral quality dominates perceived sound quality over spatial reproduction

Evidence

It was found that timbral quality corresponded to about 70% of the overall quality, whereas spatial reproduction corresponded to the remaining 30%. An interesting finding was that, when low-pass timbral artefacts were present, the spatial reproduction resulted in no advantage over monophonic reproduction. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2375

Categorization

• QUESTION: The finding that spatial advantage vanishes under timbral degradation is surprising — worth checking whether it holds across content types and other codec artefacts.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2375
• XREF: connects to: Spatial richness in multichannel sound inhibits perception of loudspeaker resonances; Timbral neutrality drives 69.5 percent of sound-quality preference; Recording technique is the prime determinant of spatial impressions in sound reproduction — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 740 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Sound reproduction quality depends on both physical acoustics and human perception #expands (0.80)
• A source’s changing directionality with frequency alters perceived timbre via the reverberant field #qualifies (0.75) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1796