How does your audience listen to your material?

I took the liberty to post a small conversation I initiated on the Phonography Yahoo group a week ago. This because I would like to save the information that was given by some of the contributors. The first comments on this article are reactions of contributors of this list. If they do not want their info been posted here please let me know and I’ll leave it out.

Lately I did a lot of testing to get better / more realistic sounding recording. At this moment, to my opinion, the Jecklin disc method gives me the most satisfying results. BUT the difference in stereo image (in comparrison to my mid/side set) is most noticeable when using headphones. So my question to you all is. What do you think your audience is using for listening to your material? Do you anticipate on this?
My idea would be that more and more people are most of the time using mp3-players to listen to music/sound. Does someone know if there has been done some research on this?

Rycote windscreen affecting frequency response

Being a field recordist for a number of years now trying to capture the character of a location. I became more and more puzzled why my recordings weren’t sounding as I heard them in the life situation.  Refusing to think that it had to do with mental filtering I started to search for a solution how I could make my recordings more real. Besides that the differences between the real thing and the recording weren’t always the same. On average I was ending up with an exaggerated low end in the recordings with some sort of resonance around 150Hz.

This is a series tests I to find out what was the audible effect of my Rycote full Windscreen Kit on my Schoeps Mk4/Mk8mid/side combination. This test was done in my studio. With a wave editor I created a pink noise file which was played back over Genelec studio monitors. I have to mention that the acoustics in my studio are not optimal. But I think that was not a problem for this test because I’d be measuring the difference between several setups and not the acoustics themselves. For this first test I wanted to start with a frequency test. So I put my field recording setup in the studio.  The Rycote windshield mounted on a Manfrotto tripod. Everything was recorded on a Sonosax SR-R4 in 44Hz/24bit. The mic rig was facing the speakers and was placed on the ‘sweetspot’.

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