Surround-sound reproduction is usually limited to a position where the listener maintains optimal perception of the reproduced soundfield. To improve the reproduction quality at off-center listening positions (OCPs), a better understanding of the nature of the perceived artifacts is necessary. Based on the geometrical relationships of a listener to the loudspeaker in a surround setup, an OCP can be characterized with three attributes: time-of-arrival differences, sound-pressure-level differences between the signal feeds, and the direction of the arriving wavefronts. Two listening experiments were conducted to elicit the perceptual effects of the off-center sound degradation of each of these three attributes in qualitative and quantitative terms. The five most often qualitatively described artifacts are related to the position of sound sources; their distance and depth; reverberation and envelopment; their spread and width; and sound coloration. The quantitative study found that off-center sound degradatio...