Aim, Objectives and Deliverables

Throughout the past century the Music Industry has seen different sound reproduction systems come and go, from the mono phonograph to the ten-point-two system in development by Tomlinson Holman and colleagues. This is due to technological advancements and the creation of the computerized society we live in today. The Audio Industry has always strived towards reproducing sound to the highest fidelity, and it is this endeavour that has driven the people of the Audio Community to invent new technologies in an attempt to bring high fidelity sound to the masses.   

The Music industry has adopted one sound reproduction system as its standard and it is known as Stereo, which comes from the Greek stereo, which means solid body. Allan Blumlein from EMI in England first applied to patent the Stereo system in 1931 and it was accepted in 1933, the same year as other advancements in stereo reproduction from America’s Bell Laboratories that will be discussed in more depth later on. Blumlein describes in patent 394,325, a two-channel sound reproduction system (see fig.1) alongside stereo recording techniques such as Binaural Recording.

(Figure.1 - Allan Blumlein’s diagram of the Stereo Reproduction System from patent 394,325)

It was this patent that lead to a new age in sound reproduction and was the basis for all multichannel systems to come in later years. The patent also covered how to record stereo sound on to disc by the use of two groove walls at right angles to each other and 45 degrees to the vertical. These inventions by Blumlein would allow Stereo Sound Reproduction to become available to the masses and would be promoted as “high fidelity” sound to the public.

Other attempts at achieving high fidelity sound reproduction, however, have not been so successful. I speak, of course, about the Quadrophonic Era: one of the first multichannel reproduction systems available to be purchased by the public. This 4-channel system was created in the early 1970’s and failed to become a new standard method of reproduction. This was due to many different factors that will be discussed more in depth later.

Although the Quadrophonic System failed in the mass market, a new format would not share the same fate. The Five-point-one Surround Sound System was standardized and named in 1987. However, it was not standardized for the Music Industry but for film. The five stands for the five speakers/channels placed left, centre, right, left surround and right surround. The point-one speaker/channel is for Low-frequency Enhancement also known as a Subwoofer; this speaker is for low frequencies only with a greater headroom of 10dB than the other five speakers/channels (see fig.2).

(Figure.2 – Five-point-one Surround Sound Speaker placement diagram)

The Five-point-one System has not quite shared the same fate as the Quadrophonic System. It has become the standard format for the Film Industry and is becoming evermore increasingly popular throughout the Games Industry with the invention of Surround Sound Headphones.

“In modern times we see it (Surround sound) firmly established in applications accompanying a picture for movies and television, but in other areas such as purely for music reproduction broad success has been more elusive.”

(Holman, 2008)

From the point of view of a sound engineer this raises some questions:

“Why has the Five-point-one System become standard for audio reproduction in the Film Industry but not for the Music Industry? Does this system share the same fate as the Quadrophonic System in terms of its uses in the Music Industry? Or will the future hold more success for Surround Sound purely for music reproduction?”

Aim:
An investigation into the listener preference between stereo and 5.1 surround sound music. This study is purely investigating the listener preference between the two playback formats' uses in music reproduction.

Objectives:

1. Define the main differences between stereo and 5.1 surround music production.


2. Produce 5.1 Surround Sound mixes of two pieces of music from contrasting genres.


3. Test the Listener Preference between the Surround Sound mix and the original Stereo mix of the two   contrasting pieces of music.


4. Find out how people currently purchase, access and playback their music.

Deliverables:

1.1 Glossary of Terms - appendix A
1.2 Definition of production process - appendix B
2.1 How i created mixes section in dissertation
2.2 Final mixes in Honours Portfolio
3.1 Test methodology and results in dissertation 
3.1 Test session in Honours portfolio
4.1 Questionnaire methodology and results section in dissertation