SonicSenses Lab
Stereo panning demo
Panning changes the relative level in each ear, and your hearing turns that difference into an apparent position. Slide it yourself or let it sweep.
Evidence rating: Established science
Stereo panning demo: how this works, in words
- What it does
- Plays one browser-generated sound and moves it across the stereo field, either by hand or as an automatic sweep.
- What it accepts
- No input of your own. The source sound is synthesised locally.
- What you control
- A pan slider from full left to full right, an automatic sweep toggle, play and stop, and a Level slider.
- What changes
- Audio only. The sound appears to move between your ears as the balance between the left and right channels changes. The current position is written out in words, for example centre or hard left.
- What it illustrates
- That a level difference between the two ears is enough for your hearing to place a sound somewhere between them - one of the basic cues behind stereo imaging.
- What it does not claim
- This is amplitude panning only, not full spatial or binaural rendering, and it does not model head shape, room reflections or distance. It makes no health or performance claim.
- Keyboard and screen readers
- The pan slider is a native range input driven by the arrow keys, and the perceived position is announced as text in a polite live region, so the movement can be followed without seeing the slider.
LeftCurrently centreRight
Use headphones for this one. On speakers the two channels mix in the room, so a hard-left setting still reaches your right ear.
Level differences between the ears are only part of how we locate sound - timing differences and the shape of the outer ear matter too, which is why headphone panning feels like it sits inside your head rather than out in the room.
Every Lab demo is generated by your own browser and stops when you leave the page. Start quiet, raise slowly, and see our listening safety guidance. Nothing here is medical advice or a treatment.