Can I swap Left and Right channels ?

[antcollinet]

Swop is perfectly valid English.

 

[mr k barnett]

Different genres of music can have different typical mixing conventions in the studio- typically the "sound" of a certain genre/style/era may have instruments, sound effects, backing vocals etc that are specifically panned/biased to one channel for instance. So if a particular element in the track producing harmonic content asymmetrically in the mix, and that happens to coincide with some defect in OP's hearing on one side, it's very possible that simply swapping channels could inadvertently "bypass" this irritation since now that harmonic content causing the problem with the bad ear is now reaching the "good" ear instead by virtue of the swap.

As an example, I personally have a hearing notch from 500-1000hz in my right ear which happens to coincide with the first harmonics of a cowbell, which is quite typically panned right along with similar percussive elements in most styles that choose to incorporate it. I can barely hear it over other sounds at all, and if I turn the music loud enough it it extremely distorted and jarring in that region, however if I swap channels in my music player I can hear it perfectly fine in my other ear. Funnily enough I also have a notch in the "good" ear at a completely different band, so a particular instrument playing in certain octaves might sound better in one ear and vice versa and it is largely dependent on the composition of the tune.

From experience this is not really an elegant solution, because if whatever is bothering him happens to come up in the other channel then the problem is no longer solved, and other harmonic content is still being affected by the deficit. It would be a concession or tradeoff he would be making between tracks, bands, genres etc. even if one side was consistently better. So it makes more sense to me to simply identify the issue with a tone gen (and could use a previous audiogram as a guide) and then handling it appropriately with EQ + trial and error, which could involve either completely notching out the problem bandwidth with an appropriately steep filter if it's narrow enough not to affect large swathes of the sound, or with varying degrees of negative (or even positive) amplification in the problem band or adjacent bands.

What many people identify as "sensitivities" with hearing are rarely that in the strictest sense of the word- it is usually either some sort of hearing deficit or damage in a particular range that causes a loss of perceived dynamic range and added noise/distortion, i.e. physiological damage through age (chronic exposure), acute exposure, medications, autoimmune conditions, vascular issues and so on.

Thank you VERY much Jae for this brilliant and highly-informed post, and very helpful reply, -- I am saving this one, and the others to the HiFi section of my bookmarks / favourites ! -- ( "favourites" is underlined by my American spell-check !!)

Up until about 5 years ago, I would not have understood much of it, but I got lucky with a new budget CD player + Headphone Amp + Headphones , that revealed a lot of sound detail for the first time, -- the position of instruments, new harmonic sounds, textures and montages, the decay of a sound into a silent space, intimate hearing of an instrument played very quietly, ETC -- but OMG (Oh My God !) - What's gone wrong with the lead vocalist who appears to have moved towards the back of the stage and has turned sideways !!

I replaced the basic interconnects with recommended ones which luckily gave an overall sound picture or soundscape in-which, to my ears, I can hear all that extra detail without ( the illusion of ) the lead singer being adversely affected -- the overall balance of the sounds was right for MY ears, at least.
-- IF I were to be able to change / reduce one small detail or sound, I might harm the rest.

In recent times I damaged my 5 year old headphones and replaced them with an alternative version from the same maker -- again, a lot of new sound detail was "prominent" / close to my ears, but again this had the effect of pushing-back ( - submerging, etc) the lead singer !
So again, - based on the previous success, I have bought highly recommended interconnects, and again the balance of sounds seems corrected.

Going back to my treble problem, your expertise above Jae may help me on my road to a musical Shangri-La !

I have recently discovered the diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com website, and that could prove to be helpful too.

Many Thanks from KB.

 

[restorer-john]

I'm not sure why you think swapping channels will help? It's not like particular frequencies will only ever be on one side.

Or am I missing something?

Classical music recordings.

Where hearing is different from ear to ear, stereo classical recordings can change the entire front to back and lateral width and depth.

 

[mr k barnett]

There is no "mixing" standard... The left & right are usually pretty-much balanced (both loudness and "tone") and it's up to the mixing engineer where to pan the instruments. (Except with a classical, there is a standard arrangement for an orchestra.) Usually the bass is centered (identical in both channels) and of course the lead vocals are usually centered.

Have you experimented with mono? ...Note that you should never "short" the left & right signals together, so that's best done with a software setting or with a piece of equipment that has a 'mono" switch. (Audacity can make a mono mix, but it's an audio editor so it's just an easy way to experiment with a few recordings.)

With a small stereo mixer you could pan the inputs left, right, or center, etc., depending on the recording.



Very common!



P.S.
The English word is swap.

Thanks very much DVDdoug, - firstly for confirming that it's common for the perceived position of the lead singer to be moved from front-centre stage, to an in-head position when listening through headphones.
It is very interesting to me that you have brought up the subject of mono here, and I know that your paragraph starting "Have you experimented with mono?" has good and valuable info / advice in it, THANK YOU.

I know, because about 6 or 7 years ago I looked into mono as one of the possible ways of restoring my enjoyment of (reproduced) music.

I won't go into further details here, because it needs a separate thread, but if I can get a mono version of a stereo CD that I have, it could make for an interesting trial !

 

[mr k barnett]

Swop is perfectly valid English.

Yes, I've just checked my 1966 Collins Gem English Dictionary, and it says swop (etc) is the same as swap (etc), - so I'm not quite as thick as my school teachers said !

 

[mr k barnett]

Classical music recordings.

Where hearing is different from ear to ear, stereo classical recordings can change the entire front to back and lateral width and depth.

Thank you restorer-john.