3D Sound

We all know about sound; we hear it every day. But, hearing an orchestra play Nutcracker is different from hearing it on your iPod. You can hear the soloist's position in an orchestra, but not on your speakers...or can you.

When audio playback was first invented in the late 19^th century, we used mono speakers. Mono speakers use only one speaker for the sound. Then, about 50 years ago, stereo sound was invented. Stereo sound uses two speakers instead of one, and gives a difference between left and right. It is limited to only "this happened on the left (or right) side." You wouldn't be able to pinpoint exactly where the sound occurred. Then surround sound came, but it only extended the feeling to front-left, front-right, back-left, and back-right. You still couldn't pinpoint sound.

Edgar Choueiri is a NASA funded rocket scientist who meddles with sound in his spare time. He developed a 3D sound system that can use any two speakers. Basically, a traditional stereo speaker would play a left ear track and a right ear track, but the effect is ruined with crosstalk, where the left ear can hear the right ear track and vice versa. To counter this, negative composite pressure waves are used to create a wall between the two speakers.

Why? When you locate where a sound is coming from, there are two cues. If a soloist is standing to your right, what he plays will come to your right ear slightly before your left ear. What hits your right ear will be louder than what hits your left ear. These two cues are enough for your brain to determine where the sound is coming from.

For those of you with a 3D TV, you know the picture is great with depth. The problem is the lousy sound quality which is, at best, only surround sound. Just imagine 3D movies paired with 3D sound. You don't even need expensive speakers. All you need are standard stereo speakers.

This is the future of stereo speakers. This breakthrough is not even expensive for consumers. This can even work for headphones. Try out these two tracks.

3D for Speakers

3D for Headphones

Watch Professor Choueiri

Here is the link to the website