A question eventually, but first a little background: I'm recently permanently deaf in one ear due to a surgical side effect. For a couple of months now, I despaired at the loss of this hobby until I discovered that both my iphone and computer music server can switch stereo into mono. Things have improved in that I can now hear both channels summed into mono in one ear, but not only is any sense of image gone, but timbre of various instruments is affected to varying degrees on different recordings. I understand that phase issues are largely to blame: when signals from the left are completely out of phase with the right, that sound disappears, and nearly out of phase signals become distorted or diminished in various ways. I am contemplating having a custom IEM built that would put the drivers from both sides into one earpiece, fed by separate left and right channels (or buying the Sensaphonics 221).
The question is: am I really going to change anything by doing this, or will the discrete channels simply sum on my ear drum just like mono?
I know that I will not be able to recover a stereo image through one ear. However, my understanding (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) is hearing the goodness of stereo sound, both its image and timbre, is based in part on the irregularities of the listening environment. For example, a perfect cube of a listening room will render severe phase (comb filtering) effects because two waves that are 180 degrees out of phase will arrive at the listener's ear at the same time, cancelling each other out. This is the same phenomenon that would happen in summing stereo to mono, So, in getting a custom one-sided stereo IEM, will I not be putting that into the equivalent of a perfect cube since there will be no room for the signals to bounce around before it hits my eardrum?
Any wisdom would be most welcome.
The question is: am I really going to change anything by doing this, or will the discrete channels simply sum on my ear drum just like mono?
I know that I will not be able to recover a stereo image through one ear. However, my understanding (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) is hearing the goodness of stereo sound, both its image and timbre, is based in part on the irregularities of the listening environment. For example, a perfect cube of a listening room will render severe phase (comb filtering) effects because two waves that are 180 degrees out of phase will arrive at the listener's ear at the same time, cancelling each other out. This is the same phenomenon that would happen in summing stereo to mono, So, in getting a custom one-sided stereo IEM, will I not be putting that into the equivalent of a perfect cube since there will be no room for the signals to bounce around before it hits my eardrum?
Any wisdom would be most welcome.