Do you watch movies on your computer? Only have two speakers?

[Fumesucker]

That's what I have to watch movies on, only a computer with two speakers, I don't have the room or the money for a surround setup so movie sound has been a bit limited for me.

Recently I was reading something that jogged my memory of Bob Carver's "sonic holography" that made a minor splash in the audio world in the early 80's if I recall correctly, did a little research and found the latest version of Bob's technique is now called "ambiophonics".

http://www.ambiophonics.org/index.html

To get an idea of what this technique sounds like you can check out the demo tracks, some of them are uncanny on my setup which is two small but high quality computer speakers one on either side of my monitor. The first set of tracks on the page are the processed versions, the second set are the original ones.

http://www.ambiophonics.org/Demos.html

Anyhoo to make a longish story shorter, I found setup that's relatively easy to implement in free software on a windows PC and tried out ambiophonics, it's just slightly short of startling how well it works on movies with a single speaker on either side of the monitor, I keep glancing to the side to see where sound is coming from, so do my dogs if they're in my lap when I'm listening.

I use WinAmp I got here http://www.winamp.com/media-player/en, a VST plugin I got from here http://www.ambiophonics.org/PCMac.html and a WinAmp VST bridge I got here http://www.winamp.com/plugin/vst-winamp-bridge/146317.

If you have time and only two speakers and don't mind playing a bit with some free software in your computer you can listen to your movies on something that sounds remarkably like a surround system.

One effect I've found interesting is that I can understand dialog better now than I could, the dialog stays for the most part in the middle and the sound effects tend to be on the sides more, it's surprising how much we use our sound localization abilities to filter out noise from something we want to listen to in real life.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. I like how you included such helpful links in your post. thank you.

We use headphones for our movies, so as not to disturb others. but occasionally like to have streaming news on the speakers, and those speakers do sound tinny.
Hmmmmm

[DCKit]

2. Wish I could R as well as K your post. Great info. nt

[Forkboy]

3. I just run my PC sound out through my stereo.

It's not surround sound (which I'm not crazy about anyways), but it sounds way better than any PC speakers.

Your post is great info though for people who don't have their PC near a stereo. :)

[Fumesucker]

4. This isn't really exactly surround sound either..

What it does is widen the front soundstage to right around 180 degrees, with some material I perceive some sounds directly to my left and right when the speakers are only about 30 degrees or so apart in front of me.

Sonic holography was originally developed for music reproduction in the home, that it works for movies as well as it does is really just a happy accident..

Try running the ambiophonic sound through your stereo speakers, you might be surprised.

[Forkboy]

5. Yeah, I'll have to give a whirl and see how it sounds.

:)

[mackerel]

6. Thanks for the info.