Stereo Sounds Different To Reversed

[mrfeedback]

I am talking about Left and Right signals here, and not Absoloute Polarity.
So, I have an old high-end Onkyo amplifier that has a Reverse/Stereo/L+R Mono/L Mono/R Mono switch that allows easy reversal of L and Right channels.

With mono recorded cds, all positions of this switch cause the same sound out of the two speakers - the room is physically and acoustically quite symmetrical also.

However with stereo recorded cds, I find that some tracks sound better and more natural in the 'Stereo' position, and some tracks sound more natural in the 'Reverse' position.
I have encountered this effect previously too with other systems where I swapped L & R at the cdp output sockets, or the amplifier input sockets.

Has anybody encountered this effect too ?.

Also, whilst travelling in Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, I found both indoor and natural outdoor sounds to be fundamentally different in these different regions, and different to sounds here in Oz.
Also the nature of the sky colour had a different quality too in Denmark.

Do any of you Northern Hemisphere folks notice any fundamentally different sounds from Aus made equipment, as compared to European or Northern American made equipment ?.

Eric / - Curious about this.

[roddyama]

Hi Eric,

I have an Apt pre-amp with which I can reverse the L-R channels. I use it mostly for troubleshooting, but yes I will hear differences from one way to the other. I hear changes in what should ideally be a mirror image sound stage and some tonal character changes, mostly in the bass region. I have always attributed it to the room interacting differently on the L channel then it does on the R.

Rodd Yamashita

PS I'm in the northren hemishpere BTW so my water rotates in the opposite direction down the drain from yours.

[jam]

Rodd,

The problem is your left ear don't hear as good as your right.

Jam

[Christer]

I've never tried deliberately swapping the channels, but I don't
think it is surprising that it sounds different. We have a dominant
ear, most of us are right-eared, which is the one we primarily
use to listen with. The right ear is directly connected to the
primary hearing center in the left half of the brain, while the
left ear takes the indirect route there through the right half
of the brain. This extra delay must be compensated for by
the brain when interpreting sounds. Problems with this
compensation results in stuttering, by the way. So far, there
are a number of different experiments supporting the theory.

One can go much deeper into this issue if following the reasearch
of the french physician Alfred Tomatis, who spent a lifetime
experimenting and studying human hearing. He came up with
an alternative theory to the usual medical theory. He never
claimed this to be the final theory, but believed it to better
explain human hearing and hearing problems. Some of the
things he claimed 50 years ago which made other physicians
laugh at him were later proven correct. Many other things are
still hypotheses, that he based on his own experience studying
patients and others. I'd better stop this excursion, since i could
probably talk for the whole evening about Tomatis. Suffice it
to say that, given the strong assymetry in our hearing, it is
not surprising that a mirror image of the sound should sound
different. To avoid misunderstandings, I should add that this
assymmetry is not in the ears themselves, but in the brains
interpretation of what we hear, but the brain also affects the
physical properties of the ears by different tension of the muscles
in the left and right ears, to give them
different sensitivity and frequency response.

Eric also raised another question, namely geographical
differences in sounds and cultural differences in sound
preferences. These are also things that Tomatis studied.
The average distribution of energy in the spectrum of spoken
language differs quite a lot between languages. For instance,
french and american english has most of the energy concentrated
to a rather narrow part of the spectrum, while for instance
british english uses a very wide spectrum, and slavic languages
an even wider spectrum, I think. Similarly, our hearing is
attuned to the spectrum of our native language, so the frequency
response of our hearing, not the physical ear, but
the processing in the brain, differs quite a lot depending on
what language we speak. This can probably to some extent
explain different sound preferences between different
language groups. Tomatis even suggested
an acoustical geography, based on the hypothesis that the
sounds used in different languages depends on the acoustics
of the location where the language evolved. For instance,
sounds that get through well in humid climates, are not the
best ones in dry climates and vice versa. This might also
explain why certain well-known sounds sound different at
different locations, as Eric mentioned. Just listen to the usual
sounds in a city a dry day and a rainy day and you will find it
sounds quite different. I live in a city center and I can often hear
in the morning if it is rainy or not before I get up and have a look.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Damn Eric, you had to bring this up, didn't you?

BTW Christer, excellent stuff...I'm familiar with the Tomatis work and I must say it convinced me of what I was perceiving.

First of all, for the record I am left handed which adds to the problem.

Let me explain, I often noticed that the left channel seemed louder to me than the right hand one. When I questioned other people about it, they said that to them the system sounded balanced and well centered.

The reason, as it turned out, I heard this imbalnce between channels so blatantly is simply that some recording engineers compensate for what they perceive as correct and shift the balance to what is the wrong direction to me.

Years later I discussed this with a well known Belgian recording engineer and he told me that I was correct in my thinking and that their training actually mentioned to correct balance for "right eared" people as this would be felt as the correct balance...

In those days left-handed people where thought of as the exception and the object is to sell the records.
So they compensate deliberately sometimes too.

As far as the channel reversal goes, indeed I noticed that too although not too often.
It should come as no surprise, really...some mess up AP, some L+R channels and, God forbid, some may do both simultaneously.

Different sound while on different geographic locations? Yes, it is true I hear differences too, nothing there that really bother me though.
Best sound ever? Errr...Bresil.

Asian people are known to perceive sound differently, one reason Japanese Hi-Fi manufacturers had so much difficulty penetrating the western market, BTW.

You certainly opened a can of worms there,

[roddyama]

Originally posted by jam
Rodd,

The problem is your left ear don't hear as good as your right.

Jam

What are you trying to say Jam,... eh? BTW, it's not tin, its brass.

[fdegrove]

Hi guys,

Good one Rodd.

Cheers,

[peterr]

First of all, for the record I am left handed which adds to the problem.

Frank, you surprise me! I thought you knew that for listening you have to use your EARS!

This way, do you have to touch the speakers to hear anything?

[mrfeedback]

Hi Frank and Hi Jam,
I hear what you are both saying, and agree with you both.
I understand temperature and humidity altering the nature of sounds, but this is still not quite what I mean.
What I speak of seems like some kind of polarisation sort of thing perhaps.
Is it possible that local and terrestrial magnetic fields subtley alter the nature of sound transmission perhaps ?.
Also to my ear there seems to be a subtley different nature in recordings according to N vs S hemisphere recordings.
Does anybody noyice any of this ?.

Eric.

[jam]

Eric,

You must be a fan of Peter Belt......

Regards,
Jam