Which psychoacoustic effect involves a 0-14 ms delay in sound from speakers?

• A. IATSE
• B. Freie Buhne
• C. Meyerhold
• D. Haas Effect

Answer: (D)

The brain’s response to two identical sounds arriving from different speakers within a very short time window is being tested. When the second sound trails the first by roughly 0–14 milliseconds, the listener perceives the sound as coming from the lead source and the two sounds fuse into a single event. This is the Haas Effect (also known as the Precedence Effect): the first-arriving sound determines the perceived direction, and the later arrival is suppressed in terms of localization. In practice, this lets sound designers widen the stereo image or create a sense of spaciousness without hearing a distinct echo, as long as the delay stays within that short range. If the delay were longer, the second sound would start to be heard as a separate echo rather than just shaping the perceived source. The other options aren’t psychoacoustic effects related to sound localization—those terms refer to people or organizations in theatre history, not perceptual phenomena.