Stereo Listening & 8D Audio

When talking about sound reproduction, I found the concepts of stereo listening and the aural blindspot extremely interesting. I really enjoyed the ways the Krukowski discusses these topics as they explain things that occur to us everyday but don't often think of. We unconsciously engage in these activities everyday but don't think twice about how or why they occur. Particularly, with stereo listening, localization provides humans with the ability differentiate what we hear through each ear. This allows us to locate sounds and focus on a particular sound out of many. This concept brought me back to a particular type of music that was popular at a time when I was younger. As I know now, it is called 8D audio in which you are prompted to put on your headphones and hear the music through each ear. What makes this particular type of audio so special is that it takes a certain sound track and manipulates it so that certain sounds of the track a particular sound at a particular time. It makes it seem like the music is moving around your head in a circle and each ear hears something different. It is posed as a new way of listening more with your brain than your ears as the moving sound tries to mimic live performance. While I don't agree that 8D audio actually sounds like live music, I did make a strong connection from this to Krukowski's concept of stereo listening. 

8D Audio - Beggin'

Through 8D audio we are forced to localize music and follow its flow. Our ears take on the task of differentiating the various sounds that are entering each ear and focus on certain ones during certain times. The movement of the sounds through 8D audio actually forces us to pick what we are going to aurally focus on in that moment. 

I think another important part of 8D audio is the prompting to use headphones while listening to it. While you can listen to it without headphones, I have found that it is not the same experience as the sound travels through each headphone, left to right and back again, to create this sensation of movement. I found this to be heavily correlated with Krukowki's concept of the aural blindspot. With the aural blindspot, sound can come from left and right but never from the front. It is interesting to think about 8D audio in this sense. Do you think that 8D audio eliminates this gap because of its fluid movement that attempts to surround one in sound? Personally, I feel that we still have to consider the fact the it is still coming from either headphone. I feel that there is almost a false sense of surrounding of sound in this sense. 

Discussion Question

1. Do you think 8D audio eliminates the aural blindspot?


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