Since it is quite arbitrary what is left and what is right, I wondered why these markings were placed on earplugs at all. For example, are there certain sounds traditionally played on the right side that can be processed better on that side than on the other? Or does this really not matter?
Answer
The difference in signal you receive between your left and right ear allows you to determine the direction from which the sound is coming.
Applying a different signal to the left and right channels of an earphone can mimic this directionality somewhat. For rock and pop music it won’t matter much if you switch left and right, but for symphonic music the listeners are used to a certain fixed line-up. So it sounds weird (but not necessarily bad) when you swap the earbuds. It then seems as if you are listening to the orchestra with your back.
It gets really weird when the sound is linked to a screen: you can hear a person who comes into the picture on the left talking to the right or a car that drives through the picture from left to right can be heard driving past from right to left
Answered by
Prof Walter Lauriks
Physics Acoustics
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
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