Effect of Channel Separation on Earphone-Presented Tones, Noise, and Stereophonic Material

Subjects listened to 500-Hz tones, broadband noise, and stereophonic program material through earphones and adjusted the channel separation, via a manual control, until the degradation of the spatial effect became detectable. Mean channel separations ranged from 10 to 15.9 dB for the musical selections employed and from 13.7 to 16.8 dB for the noise and tonal stimuli. The results are discussed in terms of existing data on detectable stereo separation and on the discrimination of interaural time differences.