ABSTRACT
For concert presentations there are two tradition streams of sound projection. There is a clear split between 'idealist' and 'realist' approaches. The musical intentions of the composer are encoded in the work as 'stored'. Hence the function of sound projection is to present these to the greatest possible effect. The most radical answer to Doppler reproduction paradox has come from the development of Wave Field Synthesis (WFS). WFS is 'object-oriented'; individual sound objects or attributes may be defined along with their spatial positions and trajectories. It is then up to the playback software to 'allocate' these to the individual loudspeakers of the specific array (which may vary from place to place). The dream of 'tight' sound beaming is diametrically opposite to that of WFS. Any wave phenomenon diffracts – that is bends around objects or spreads out into the 'acoustic shadow'. This is increasingly true at low frequencies (longer wavelengths).
