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Some numbers on transient localization..

People can localize sounds to within 2° in the horizontal plane. The primary mechanism by which we can do this is by analysing the arrival times of the leading edge of the sound envelope between the two ears.

If you do the math, based on the average width of a human head and the fact sound travels at 345m/s, this minimal detectable inter-aural time delay is on the order of 5 micro seconds.

Also, researchers have arrived at similar numbers by playing clicks through headphones on test subjects. By slightly delaying the click between the left and right ears the localization of the sound changes, and the minimally detectable delay was found to be around 5 microseconds.

Now what sine wave frequency corresponds to 5 microseconds? It's a bit higher than 20kHz. In fact, ten times higher at 200kHz. So even though we may not be able to hear pure tones above 20Khz, the mind does make use of higher frequencies to identify transients and the leading edges of sounds.

I think this is one reason why DSD, at a 2.8MHz sample rate, sounds so good.

Cheers,
Dave.




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