Is soundstage just a distortion?

Thanks, Newbee. To clarify, though, what I was saying is that my experiences listening to the warble tones on the test record I referred to led me to believe that it is the nature of our hearing mechanisms themselves, completely independent of reflections from the ceiling (or anything else), that can cause notes having differing frequency content and harmonic structures to be perceived as originating from different heights.

My reference to ceiling reflections was made to indicate that the listening experiments I had done had not been extensive enough to positively RULE OUT the possibility that ceiling reflections were responsible for what I perceived. But for several reasons I was highly doubtful that reflections were the cause, or at least the main cause.

Just now I have repeated the experiment, using my present Daedalus Ulysses speakers, which as can be seen here have a driver layout that is vertically symmetrical, with the tweeters in the middle. In addition to performing the experiment at my normal listening distance of about 11 feet, I also performed it listening very near-field, from about 2 feet directly in front of the tweeters.

The results confirmed my earlier belief. I perceived each half-octave warble above about 5 kHz as originating, to varying degrees, from heights that were WAY above the tweeters, even when those tweeters were just 2 feet away and exactly at ear height. Below about 5 kHz that effect did not occur.

Best regards,
-- Al

I really think our subconscious expectations play a major role in the construction of the sound stage. Add to that the engineer's ability to inject the correct sonic cues, ie: tone, distance, decay, and viola, things are just where they should be.

Al,

Are you able to rule out the room acoustics in your tests as a factor?

That would seem to be a logical explanation for hearing different test tone frequencies at different heights. Anything about your room's acoustics that might account for it? How about more sound absorbent carpeting and obstructive/reflective room furnishings on floor combined with a more reflective and unobstructed ceiling region?

Maybe listening with headphones would be a good test to see if hearing alone produces the effect?

Or an SPL meter reading up high and down low might help confirm if top of the room is more "lively" than the "bottom" and if that might help account for things. I suspect that is often the case in many peoples rooms, but have nothing to prove it.

Hi Mapman,

Are you able to rule the room acoustics in your tests as a factor?

I would think that listening from 2 feet away, directly in front of the tweeters, pretty much rules out room acoustics as being responsible for the effect I described.

Maybe listening with headphones would be a good test to see if hearing alone produces the effect.

I would assume that the acoustic effects of the pinnae (the part of the ear that is outside of the head) are a major contributor to the effect I described. Headphones pretty much bypass the pinnae, and of course fire into the ears from the sides rather than from the front, so I'm not sure that headphone listening would provide any meaningful insight with respect to the effect I described.

Best regards,
-- Al

"I would assume that the acoustic effects of the pinnae (the part of the ear that is outside of the head) are a major contributor to the effect I described. "

I see. Could be the shape of the ear is a factor, larger area above to gather more higher frequency sound, less below.

Cupping the hands behind the ear is the best free tweak, after all. Maybe try that as a test with the tones and see?

If the room is lively, and a warble tone is used, I could see where reflected sound could be a factor, perhaps enough so for our sensitive ears to pick up on. Hard to say for sure.

PErception of higher frequencies coming from higher up than others is certainly not an unusual phenomena though I would say, whatever the contributing factors.