Cocktail Party Effect
Cocktail Party Effect
The following incorporates two excerpts from "Applying the Benefits of Unamplified Acoustic Music to Performances with Amplification" - pages 11 and 51[1]
Unamplified performances
- In an unamplified musical performance, a rich and diverse sound field is created by the arrangement in space of the players and their instruments. Musicians and members of the audience hear the sound of each instrument coming from a different direction, and this direction corresponds naturally to what they see.
- In unamplified performances, regardless of where the listener is located, sound is heard coming from the directions of the individual instruments – directions that furthermore correspond to what is seen.
- The perceptual benefit of having sound from sources in a multi-source environment come from different directions has been extensively studied in the field of psychoacoustics and is known there as the cocktail party effect.2 Other studies show the significant benefit that comes from being able to see and hear a source at the same time, a benefit of special importance in a multi-source environment.3
Fundamental advantages of the new approach
- The advantages of the approach based on the Cylindrical Radiator™ loudspeaker are comprehensive because both the primary and secondary problems characteristic of the triple-system approach are addressed.
- 1. Full use of the property of hearing known as the cocktail party effect
- In the audience and on stage, regardless of location, the sound of each instrument or voice comes from a different direction. Thus the full spatial richness present in an unamplified performance is achieved. The full benefit of the cocktail party effect – the ability to pick out and appreciate individual instruments and voices because they are coming from different directions – is enjoyed by musicians and members of the audience.
- In the approach using Cylindrical Radiator loudspeakers described here, the listener hears sound from the locations of each of the individual instruments, as in an unamplified performance.
This page incorporates two direct quotes from
Applying the Benefits of Unamplified Acoustic Music to Performances with Amplification
You may not edit this page, But please add comments in this article's discussion page.
See also: Cocktail Party Effect — Wikipedia