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It sounds like a joke, but there may be a deeper wisdom. Here's a conjecture.
Mono is superior to stereo, in some situations, because the sound field it produces is more "transparent". In other words, it is a less pervading masker of other sounds.
Anecdotally, I've experienced situations where the background music is at the same time muffled and disruptive of conversations, and others where both seem relatively easy to perceive. In the former, people tend to speak louder (Lombard effect), which prompts the music lovers to sneak over to the hifi system and notch up the volume at which point everyone starts shouting. I tend to associate the former with a reverberant space and stereo (particularly additional speakers), and the latter with an acoustically damped space and mono (particularly played from an adjacent room). Whether there is a basis to the stereo/mono part of this this is unclear.
Stereo might have an adverse effect on multiple sound segregation cues. In an anechoic space you would lose the benefit of a point source, and this might carry over in part to more reverberant environments. You're less likely to have a head shadow benefit if sound comes from both sides. Spectro-temporal gaps are likely to be fewer and shallower, harmonicity cues smeared, and so-on. Stereo-enhancing algorithms might further degrade these cues if they involve convolution (filters).
I'd love to know of any work that corroborates or disproves this conjecture, for example based on behaviour, sound field measurements, or simulations.
Alain
On 30 Jan 2023, at 09:51, Richard F. Lyon <dicklyon@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Les, that's precious! Thanks for keeping us up to date on 50-year-old satirical ideas!
Dick
On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 4:11 PM Les Bernstein <lbernstein@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Interesting, but why? After all, monophonic sound is superior to stereo sound! See the attached regarding converting to monophonic sound. You're about 50 years too late.🙂
Les Bernstein
--
Leslie R. Bernstein, Ph.D. | Professor Emeritus
Depts. of Neuroscience and Surgery (Otolaryngology) | UConn School of Medicine
263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, CT 06030-3401
Office: 860.679.4622 | Fax: 860.679.2495
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On 1/28/2023 10:48 PM, Christopher Kissel wrote:
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Greetings!
For many years it was considered impossible to realistically convert mono musical source material to stereo. In fact, consider this statement in the Third Edition of The New Stereo Soundbook by Ron Streicher & F. Alton Everest (2006 Audio Engineering Associates), undoubtably one of the most authoritative books published on the subject of stereo sound:
“The most important point in studying the various methods of converting a mono signal to stereo is the realization that it is impossible to do so: the best that can be hoped for is a signal that has some of the characteristics of a stereo signal.”
On January 29, 2015 my website, monotoSTEREO.info, went live. I started the website to provide a collection of resources for individuals interested in upmixing older mono source material to stereo through the use of spectral editing and audio (sound) source separation... more specifically, music source separation. In that time the website has been visited over 66,000 times by individuals in 185 countries!
The goal of this technology is the creating of stereo mixes that are virtually indistinguishable from stereo mixes created using multitrack session tapes, had they existed.
There are now several hundred examples mono recordings that have been upmixed to stereo using this technology which have been linked to on the MEDIA pages of the website. A number of these have been released commercially:
MEDIA 1
MEDIA 2
MEDIA 3
MEDIA 4
MEDIA 5
MEDIA 6
MEDIA 7
MEDIA 8
MEDIA 9
MEDIA 10
MEDIA 11
MEDIA 12
MEDIA 13
MEDIA 14
MEDIA 15
MEDIA 16
MEDIA 17
MEDIA 18
MEDIA 19
MEDIA 20
MEDIA 21
MEDIA 22
MEDIA 23
MEDIA 24
MEDIA 25
Links to commercially available releases which utilize this technology can be found here:
LATEST RELEASES
RELEASED 1
RELEASED 2
There are now a total of 106 tools featured on the TOOLS pages of the website, which are accessible from the pull-down menus anywhere on the website:
TOOLS (A-C)
TOOLS (D-I)
TOOLS (J-R)
TOOLS (S)
TOOLS (T-Z)
More tools continue to be added, including web-based services and even music source separation apps that run on iOS and Android devices!
There are now over 1,700 research papers, presentations, etc. linked to on the RESEARCH pages of the website!
A companion Facebook page for the website provides updates and related content. Be sure to “Like” the Facebook page to follow it for the updates!
You can also follow me on Mastodon: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://techhub.social/@mono_to_STEREO__;!!Cn_UX_p3!g4K3ECC8DMsKrv9zH7kOe7Riji570UtuCAHXOogFfA3J4EFMLMMu1UC8x6q4DIN8_LRTcmglNHgU1zaRy89_1KrxTFZ8JIU$
I’d like to take this opportunity to again thank the engineers who have been showcasing what is possible with this technology. I must also thank the various researchers and developers who have made this technology accessible, powerful, and useable for so many. The technology and the tools to utilize it continue to improve dramatically! Lastly, a big thank you to the visitors to the website. Your continued interest and support are very much appreciated! I sincerely hope that you continue to find the website interesting, informative, educational, and inspiring!
Best regards,
Christopher Kissel
Owner & Webmaster of monotoSTEREO.info
