If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]

This isn't a panning problem. It's a movement and stereo imaging problem. So many of the comments below talk about panning but I feel that it might be getting confusing. There has been so much interest in this video that I will follow it up, soon hopefully. DM

What I heard that drove me batty was the slight ticks and pips in the right channel. Completely distracting for me.

I'm not an audiophile and I have less problem.😂

It sounded MP3ish to me vs FLAC quality..heard it through my phones speaker though..thanks

En français on appel ça faire de la branlette, tout ça pour du vent.

I'm content not being an audio file.

Needs mastering

Most people are just enthusiast but feel they are audiophiles. I have been into quality reproduction equipment for 55 years. Its only been the last 15 years that have fully understood the importance of the source material. The kids understand this, they listen to junk music so all they need are a phone and some earbuds. At this stage in my life what I need is quality reproduction equipment ,accurate low power amplification and really great near field speakers.

The L-R separation doesn't bother me at all. The only thing that I could pick up as irregularity was the occasional subtle knock. Perhaps from the clarinet.

I heard a sound where either someone touch the damn microphone accidently or maybe the clarinet blower had to much salive in mouth, because there is a sound of something smackering,, like when you chew with open mouth.

The first time I heard the music in the video, I could not discern clarinet movement. I had the headphones on and didn't notice any bounce between left, center, and right. I could hear other instruments to the right and some to the left but the clarinet was pretty much dead center. The second time you played it, I can hear the clarinet mostly dead center and maybe to the right ear. Same with my speaker setup on my home entertainment system with the Polk Audio speakers. The movement of the clarinet is very minimal from my own ears. And you're correct that as you get older, the hearing, especially the high ranges, aren't as clear. This is where the bass comes in - to get the heart pumpin' ;) LOL

I heard the "tapping" of the instrument keys and something I thought was escaping air through the changes... is this supposed to be noticed? Didn't think at all of the movement of the source of the sound, I feel like that part is part of the performance kind of adding to the up-beat-ness of the piece. (non-disclaimer: Not an audiophile, I came here to test my approx. $6 IEMs(InEarMonitors), getting sendt through a $4 Bluetooth transceiver (noticed its the less f'ed up way for me to get audio from my laptop to my IEMs or headsets ie. not bass bossed somehow somewhere) )

TL:DR; 1. I heard something I assume and curious if its meant to be audible?
Excuse for caring about this without being "one of those" I'm not weird about audio I just want to see if these IEMs are good enough to hear different sounds simultaneously in the game Escape from Tarkov.
(ex. you make sound when you walk, run, pivot, rusle through your backpack etc. and you would ideally be able to hear someone reloading their gun in a bush far far away.) ... so yeah I'm probably weird about other things, like leaving weirdly long comments on 7 month old video, which probably wont be read.

Edit/PS: yes the IEMs and BT-transceiver were purchased on AliExpress while looking for a cheap/quality-enough sweet-spot... yes I actually felt I had to come back and make this clear, making this long comment longer.

How are you supposed to hear the stereo image wandering on a cell phone??? 😆

ha ha ha so right

I'm a bit over the notion that there are some "experts" out there who not only get to say what sounds good or doesn't, they seem to think they have the authority to say who is and who is not an audiophile. Whatever.

I thought I heard a click on the right channel

I;m a professional musician and music professor. This is how I think recordings should be made as it emulates how mustic sounds in live performance. When I am mastering computer music, I ppurposely randomize panning to make the music more lively and interesting.

Kind of nice having the clarinet slightly drift in the panoramic image, gives the illusion of a live setting where the performer by their movements 'project' the sound of their instrument whilst moving to the flow of the melody.

POPPY COCK

I heard all of this on my built in PC casing speaker

I'd also like to add on from what a lot of people are saying in the comments about the movement. People like different aspects of their audio, and for me personally I like a lot of movement in audio. Hearing the movement allows me to visualize the source of the audio better. Picture the sounds as moving lights that change shape based on the frequency and loudness they have. If everything is set in the center and has little to no movement, I get that it takes a lot to be able to pull that off, but I feel like by doing that the audio loses some data and doesn't properly represent the actual source at all.

I thought it was the high end rasp, then I realized it was the player's breath flowing through the instrument, also heard the fingers.

At first I thought I was hearing the chains rattling on a snare drum.

It's not a problem, it's a feature.

I got it, phew, I can continue being a sound engineer

I watched this clip on my phone and my clarinet didn't wander anywhere, just a nice piece of music. People who care about this stuff don't enjoy music, they enjoy autism.

I never thought of myself as an audiophile until I started hearing things like rumble (rerecorded music), clarinets that went sour (mozart) and distortion on disks marked DDD. I knew the problem wasn't my vintage equipment, it was the poor recordings I had. Adding an old EQ with a 20hz filter button helped. Everything sounded noticeably cleaner without the unneeded cone excursion, but it couldn't cure the other aberrations. The video: No, I couldn't hear the problem with the clarinet and now I'm embarrassed. :-))

I am an enthusiast who couldn't hear the bias. Props to the clarinet player. Well done. And a very interesting technical video.

I think of myself as an audiophile but to be honest, listening with headphones I didn't notice the effect until you pointed it out. I have occasionally noticed certain instruments moving around slightly on my main system but thought it might be mismatched crossovers or room reflections. Your explanation will put a different slant on my music listening. By the way I thought there was slightly less bass and highs on the second example. So much for being an audiophile 🤔.

Hey, I have one word of advice for you as someone who likes to listen to audio and look at visual. How are we supposed to interpret that the clarinet is supposed to be Center when you keep showing videos of rolling pasture, hills. I’m picturing a little bunny or a deer going left right as the clarinet. No offense but this was a shit video.

Audio Extremist

So you're saying it's not supposed to shift? haha okay well I had headphones one and I feel that always happens. how are we supposed to know? What i hear is a glitch.

My Bluetooth headphones are severely lacking in stereo separation, so ... no, of course not. :D

I'm a broke audiophile with just headphones.

IMO, this music was perfect.

Your out to lunch and waste my time.

It didn’t really move. The clarinet was most likely mic’d with two microphones and while the player moved, the image moved a little. In fact, you can hear the sound holes opening a little on the right while the musical notes are mostly centered. It really is just a bad phasing job done by the recording engineer. It’s common with overhead microphones and snare drums. Edit: I typed that out before you started showing the video and you explained it. I was correct 😛

I just thought the clarinet player was dancing while he was playing

I have my computer audio set to mono so it sounded fine in my headphones anyway

I heard it, but didn’t see it as a problem. The sound of the “moving” clarinet felt natural, and therefore right.

This reminds me of a classical guitar part I recently recorded with an old band mate. There were some non-musical noises in his performance, but they were just the natural creaks, clicks, and taps of an instrument being handled. I tried to keep those sounds to a minimum, but i didn’t want them totally eliminated. To me, those sounds are proof that a human played that part, and not a robot.

I didn't hear it until you explained it, but I'm sat in front of two speakers crossing each other. I heard it when I got up and moved forward.
As you said, headphones, earbuds or being in a car would have made it more obvious.
In fact, I think there's some jazz I heard that did exactly the same.
What I don't understand is: why consider it a flaw? I actually like these kinds of surprises.

I didn't hear the "problem" the first time, not because it didn't go unnoticed, but rather because I found it natural and appealing. This is a problem only to someone that believes it to be a problem.

For people who are bothered by this, it would be interesting to know how far apart their speakers are. I think the further apart the speakers, the more jarring the stereo movement will be. It would be a significant shift in sound placement, where speakers that are closer together would render it more as a gentle sway.

I've literally just binnned my fostex, RME-DAC 2 and flushed my braided cable down the toilet since all this junk was unable to clearly indicate to me that panning is a massive problem in audio production ... thanks to you I now know better....tough lesson but I'll make it.

Neslyšel jsem to. Moje bezdrátové špunty Technics mi nic neřekly.
Ps: pravé sluchatko hraje asi o 15% slaběji.... Nevim co se pokazilo 😂🤣😂

It sucks. I'm an audiophile.

I can't hear it, but I also have complete hearing loss in one ear. That said, I sometimes wonder why I stress over surround sound and high-fidelity audio equipment when I can't hear it anyway.

With my PC desktop near me, it is like having a tractor. So, no, I did not hear it.

me listening at work with one earphone :)))

Audiophile are people who searching errors in the music ..totally idiotic!

Question from someone who enjoyed the music regardless of the instrument position. Does it realy metter?