User Guide

172
Surround basics
The quality of surround sound...
Our perception of sound is a function of personal
bias. It is so very subjective that there will never be
universal agreement on the definitive sound.
However, there are some criteria designed to
introduce dispassionate standardized parameters for
assessing sound quality rather than the emotional
yardstick we usually use to gauge sound (my how
beautiful; oh, that’s just brilliant). These criteria
must be met to compete with the best of ‘em in the
professional sound-sculpting league. The European
Broadcasting Union (EBU) - founded in 1950 and
based in Geneva - has published its evaluation
criteria for multi-channel recordings.
We took some excerpts, adapted them to the Neuron,
and came up with the following tips on rating sound
quality:
Front image
• Is the panorama narrow or wide?
• Do the signal sources sound realistic or
artificial?
• Do the sources appear to be stable or unstable?
• Are signal sources easily localized, that is,
pinpointed in the soundscape?
Rear (side) image
• Is the rear soundscape balanced?
• Are signal sources easily localized?
• Is the sound of the rear soundscape
homogenous?
Environment
• Does the ambient environment match the audio
content?
• Is reverberation audible or is the sound dry?
• Is the size of the room in which the signal was
recorded recognizable; does the signal have
spatial depth?
• Is the acoustic balance right?
Transparency of the overall sound
• Are audio details easily heard? Are they
distinguishable as a function of time?
Distribution of signal sources
• Are signal sources distributed realistically
across the room?
• Are individual sources too loud or too soft?
• Are individual sources rendered too directly or
too indirectly?
• Are the dynamics of every source appropriate to
the signal?
Neuron.book Seite 172 Montag, 23. Dezember 2002 2:28 14