History and current state of the war between the two main approaches to surround sound: discrete speaker feeds versus hierarchical matrix

40th AES Conference - Tokyo, 8-10 October 2010

Which type of surround is being emulated by the spot mikes + panning method?

•At a first glance, it is discrete, as the signals are usually delivered ready for the loudspeakers

•But, as the panner usually adjustes amplitude only, the signals are in reality much more similar to those created by a hierarchical matrix