Why can your hearing focus on one especific sound (barely listening to the rest) when you are in an open space but is unable to if you are hearing a recording?

Question

I get that the sound get plastered on a track by the recording device but, why can’t the ear pick out just one part of it?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Sounds from different locations come to your ear in different ways, changing the space of the sound waves and how they interact with the organs in your ear that process sound.

Sound from a recording loses that. Its like the difference between a 2d photo and a 3d object.

We can spoof sound so that it sounds more natural, this is what surround sound is. It processes sound in such a way as to make it sound like its coming from multiple locations as actual sound does.