AURORA Electron Devices® — Technical Lexicon

Entry 6.3

Virtual Source

Technical Lexicon of Pattern Conservation in Stereophonic Electroacoustic Reproduction

Lexicon IndexTheory

0. NARRATIVE FORMULATION

“A perceived sound position that does not necessarily coincide with a physical emitter.”

1. DEFINITION

A virtual source is an apparent source to which the neuro-perceptual system attributes identity, position, extent and stability by integrating the acoustic pressures available at the two aural reference points, on the basis of the cues encoded in the recording and the conditions of reproduction, geometry, environment and binaural filtering.

2. POSITION WITHIN THE THEORY*

In stereophony, interchannel differences in time, level, spectrum and phase may produce localisations between, beyond or behind the loudspeakers. The virtual source is not a physical object present in space and does not by itself demonstrate either the accuracy of the reconstruction or pattern conservation.

3. RELATIONSHIPS AND OPERATING CONDITIONS

4. PERCEPTUAL TRANSLATION

A virtual source may appear focused, broad, distant or moving. Extreme focus is not always the correct reference: some recordings encode extended sources or diffuse environments.

5. MEASUREMENT, EVIDENCE AND LIMITS

Verification may use signals of known position, QSound, controlled panning, binaural measurements and localisation tests. Repeatability and directionality with respect to the pattern encoded in the recording are essential.

6. TRANSLATION WITHIN THE AURORA Electron Devices® TECHNICAL-SCIENTIFIC FRAMEWORK

'AURORA' regards the stability of virtual sources as an outcome of the chain and installation. Symmetry, interchannel coherence, radiation and environment are treated jointly to prevent localisation from depending predominantly on the loudspeakers.

7. OPERATIONAL SUMMARY

Virtual source = an apparent source reconstructed through acoustic cues; its stability is informative, not independent evidence of fidelity.

Claudio Angelo Chiappini, Theory of Pattern Conservation in Stereophonic Electroacoustic Reproduction — Technical Edition, Version 1.0. ORCID 0009-0007-0742-5780. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20768488

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