Imaging

Stereo Imaging

Stereo imaging, an aspect of sound recording and reproduction concerning spatial locations of the performers.

Stereo imaging is the audio jargon term used for that aspect of sound recording and reproduction concerning spatial locations of the performers, both laterally and in depth. An image is ‘good’ if the performers can be effortlessly located; ‘bad’ if there is no hope of doing so. A well-made stereo recording, properly reproduced, can provide good imaging within the front quadrant; a well-made Ambisonic recording, properly reproduced, can offer good imaging all around the listener and even including height information.

For many listeners, good imaging adds markedly to the pleasure of reproduced music. One may speculate that this is due to the evolutionary importance to humans of knowing where sounds are coming from, and that imaging may therefore be more important than some purely esthetic considerations in satisfying the listener. Listeners do exist who have difficulty paying attention to the musical content of a recording if the imaging is not good.

The quality of the imaging arriving at the listener’s ear depends on numerous factors, of which the most important is the original “miking”, that is, the choice and arrangement of the recording microphones (where “choice” refers here not to the brands chosen, but to the size and shape of the microphone diaphragms, and “arrangement” refers to microphone placement and orientation relative to other microphones). This is partly because miking simply affects imaging more than any other factor, and because, if the miking spoils the imaging, nothing later in the chain can recover it.

If miking is done well, then quality of imaging can be used to evaluate components in the record/playback chain (remembering that once the imaging is destroyed, it cannot be recovered).