It also makes listening as a social activity more difficult, if the system is tuned around one individual's deficiencies?
You mean those speakers were positioned 90 degrees to the sides or less (like in Beveridge positioning)?
How far were they from the listener and from the side walls?
What kind of speakers it was? Was it a conventional minimonitor type placed on their backs or something else?
Were the side walls acoustically treated in any way?
Had You an opportunity to listen to any conventional stereo recordings through such a system?
I believe that when listening to a mono source, flat FR will be recieved by different individuals as the reference ideal, because it represents how we hear sounds in everyday life.
It's only when stereo or multichannel is introduced that we will deverge from the ideal and form prejudices.
These prejudices in FR are our own individual learned ideals through a lifetime of training our ears when listening to a multisource signal. The problem is our individual HRTF and nothing else.
If you were to play back an audio signal created with a binaural recording using your own head and ears on flat FR headphones, You will be placed in the audio scene.....end of story.
Now, how do we try to replicate this over 2 loudspeakers?
USING AND IMPROVING CROSSTALK CANCELLATION!
When we listen to mutichannel sources, FR and phase response goes haywire when diffracting off the head shadow and pinna, Therefore we have learned through years of training with our favorite speakers (with there own FR), what the ideal should be.....
So, we can continue with our arguments and proclamations over digital vs analog....single driver vs multi....stereo vs surround....class d vs set, or whatever else.
These things are important, but they are all second to getting crosstalk cancellation correct.
It's only when stereo or multichannel is introduced that we will deverge from the ideal and form prejudices.
These prejudices in FR are our own individual learned ideals through a lifetime of training our ears when listening to a multisource signal. The problem is our individual HRTF and nothing else.
If you were to play back an audio signal created with a binaural recording using your own head and ears on flat FR headphones, You will be placed in the audio scene.....end of story.
Now, how do we try to replicate this over 2 loudspeakers?
USING AND IMPROVING CROSSTALK CANCELLATION!
When we listen to mutichannel sources, FR and phase response goes haywire when diffracting off the head shadow and pinna, Therefore we have learned through years of training with our favorite speakers (with there own FR), what the ideal should be.....
So, we can continue with our arguments and proclamations over digital vs analog....single driver vs multi....stereo vs surround....class d vs set, or whatever else.
These things are important, but they are all second to getting crosstalk cancellation correct.
The recording engineer making the mix cuts/boost frequencies so that they sound accurate on his reference monitors. His reference monitors always measure as flat as possible. So creating a speaker that takes the equal loudness curves into account can actually be detrimental.
I think its worth mentioning that extreme stereo separation is also mentally fatiguing from my experience.
I find it quite funny that many designers try to absolutely abolish L/R channel crosstalk. Listen to a pair of headphones for a few hours (perfect L/R separation as far as the drivers go). Soon enough you'll have a huge urge to rip your headphones off. The perfect L/R channel separation confuses the brain from my subjective experience. I assume its because in nature, we always hear sounds from both ears with a time/phase/whatever delay. This isn't always the case with stereo music i guess.
Headphones are only fatiguing because all pinna cues are coming from the sides. You can add crosstalk to headphones and they are still fatiguing because the image stays in the head, not out in front as it should be.
you could listen to binaural audio all day if you could tolerate the pressure from the earphones.
Hmm, headphones don't produce any pinna cues, no?
Correct. Nevertheless I think the best stereo system would have to utilize headphones (and personalized HRTFs). Way to many problems with speakers in rooms.
Markus, without the air in the room...no sound 
Now seriously : if you negate the air travel from loudspeaker to the ears, you just don't make happen the evolvement of the sound in ambient.
What happened firstly when sound was recorded ?
What the mic catches of the evolvement of the sound in the original venue ?
Why we are talking about the original venue and the technique of recording it ?
So when using HPs you just negate the second travel of the sound to your ears ( the first was when it was recorded) which is ( can also be divided in time and space, see all the Fourier & Co. and disciples, but doesn't take into account the sequence of which the sound- of music- is made) time and space.
Now seriously : if you negate the air travel from loudspeaker to the ears, you just don't make happen the evolvement of the sound in ambient.
What happened firstly when sound was recorded ?
What the mic catches of the evolvement of the sound in the original venue ?
Why we are talking about the original venue and the technique of recording it ?
So when using HPs you just negate the second travel of the sound to your ears ( the first was when it was recorded) which is ( can also be divided in time and space, see all the Fourier & Co. and disciples, but doesn't take into account the sequence of which the sound- of music- is made) time and space.
Don't understand your comment. I don't "negate the air travel from loudspeakers to the ears". With headphones one can do anything a two speaker stereo setup in a room does and much, much more. That's why I've said headphone playback can be the better stereo system. The problem is that it hasn't been done yet. But there are first attempts, e.g. Smyth Realiser or Beyerdynamic Headzone.
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'propagation of the sound in an elastic element, with elastic boundaries determining the modes of vibration of the room'
At least, the room modes and the way it accepts sounds is the basis to develop the two sources. Which may be defined as the old stero Blumlein, or as a way to store information that had happened somewhere else and find a way trough the processment of the chain to be re-lived again, so the sound is the processment.
And yes, Hps are comfortable and they are the future
At least, the room modes and the way it accepts sounds is the basis to develop the two sources. Which may be defined as the old stero Blumlein, or as a way to store information that had happened somewhere else and find a way trough the processment of the chain to be re-lived again, so the sound is the processment.
And yes, Hps are comfortable and they are the future
'propagation of the sound in an elastic element, with elastic boundaries determining the modes of vibration of the room'
At least, the room modes and the way it accepts sounds is the basis to develop the two sources. Which may be defined as the old stero Blumlein, or as a way to store information that had happened somewhere else and find a way trough the processment of the chain to be re-lived again, so the sound is the processment.
And yes, Hps are comfortable and they are the future
Sorry but I don't understand what you're trying to express. Do you know "Stereo Microphone Techniques: Are the Purists Wrong?" by Lipshitz? Highly recommended read.
Headphones doesn't give you the whole physical experience... So we are back to devices moving a lot of air...
Brgds
You have probably done this before but can you reference where that paper is? What AES volume, etc.
Correct. With the smith realizer. Not with a simple crosstalk emulator.
Smith realizer, Ralph Glasgal's listening room and a barrier.
Done.
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