Editing Sound Field Parameters

What is a sound field

Changing parameter settings

What really creates the rich, full tones of a live instrument are the multiple reflections from the walls of the room. In addition to making the sound “live”, these reflections enable us to tell where the player is situated, and the size and shape of the room in which we are sitting.

■Elements of a sound field

In any environment, in addition to the direct sound coming straight to our ears from the player’s instrument, there are two distinct types of sound reflections that combine to make up the sound field:

Early reflections

Reflected sounds reach our ears extremely rapidly (50 ms

–100 ms after the direct sound), after reflecting from one surface only – for example, from the ceiling or a wall. Early reflections actually add clarity to the direct sound.

Reverberations

These are caused by reflections from more than one surface – walls, ceiling, the back of the room – so numerous that they merge together to form a continuous sonic “afterglow”. They are non-directional, and lessen the clarity of the direct sound.

Direct sound, early reflections and subsequent reverberation taken together help us to determine the subjective size and shape of the room, and it is this information that the digital sound field processor reproduces in order to create sound fields.

If you could create the appropriate early reflections and subsequent reverberations in your listening room, you would be able to create your own listening environment. The acoustics in your room could be changed to those of a concert hall, a dance floor, or virtually any size room at all. This ability to create sound fields at will is exactly what YAMAHA has done with the digital sound field processor.

You can enjoy good quality sound with the factory preset parameters. Although you do not have to change the initial settings, you can change some of the parameters to better suit the input source or your listening room.

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