EDIT: I have since setup Dolby Headphone with channel mixer for a desirable surround experience: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/5-...-files-447089/

I decided to post this in the members' lounge as it's more of an experience I'd like to share as opposed to say sound science.

Soundstage, or sound stage; what is it and why do we want it. Soundstage presents the listener with a panoramic listening area, a landscape of sound position and distance.

From the beginning of time recorded music has been created with the focus on loudspeaker reproduction, that being left and right channel stereo. A few recording have from time-to-to been focused towards multiple loudspeakers, be it 5.1, and binaural; recording for natural ear spacing primely for use with headphones. This in short is why we don't get much of a sound stage while listening to stereophonic music made for loudspeakers. While certain headphones will present stereophonic music with a seemingly larger soundstage, non can compare with the depth and detailed positioning of a binaural recording.

So the question is: why don't headphones position stereophonics better
or perhaps the question should be: why isn't all music recorded at the very minimum 5.1.

On my recent quest for soundstage I decided to tackle the latter question of 5.1 recordings; how good is it and more importantly how good it sounds on headphones. For this 'soundstage journey' I used Jean Michel Jarre's 'Oxygene: Live In Your Living Room' recording in Dolby Digital 5.1
 

 
For this to work as I intended I needed an array of software and decoders. First and foremost my playback had to be bit-perfect, for this I used foobar with WASAPI. I also needed a DTS decoder which can be downloaded from the foobar components page and finally I needed a Dolby Headphone plugin which is also available from foobar. Once setup I hit play and kicked back for a listen; in a nutshell I have never heard music this good from headphones, so detailed and layered, 3D surround sound positioning and I'm in the middle of it! So incredibly detailed, it was like hearing Vangelis for the first time as a child, all these new sounds whizzing around, just introducing there presence to my ears.

Excited by my new discovery I wanted to listen to the rest of my stereophonic music with Dolby Headphone enabled; I loaded up Legend of the black Shawarma by Infected Mushroom, one of my favorite groups for headphone listening. I hit play and... not good, not good at all; the sound was only coming from behind me, as if my front center, left and right speakers were no longer hooked up. The bass was just about the same experience which was coming from a sub woofer on the floor however this 'sat in front' position while hugely different from the norm was not ideal.

While I enjoy music I would say I am very visual and so I have attempted to depict the sound heard around my head, or rather in my brain through my ears in an illustration.



The light green depicts your standard headphone, with left and right soundstage. The teal color depicts Ultrasone and there S-logic technology, while this presents the listener with 3-dimensional sound it is typically not as wide as other headphones. The darker green is Dolby Headphone; extremely wide with a full 180° sweep however there is nothing coming out of the imaginary front speakers. The entire circle would represent my 5.1 listening experience.

In closing I suppose I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with headphones and recorded music as a whole. Overall we are seeing a huge drop in sound quality, with CDs being recorded at much higher volumes, music artists sporting cheap headphones like the beats as-if to say we don't give a damn about the audio quality.

While going back to the rest of my music after my 5.1 experience I have to say it all sounds a little boring I will continue my headphone journey and hope 5.1 catches on in the near future.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

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All Dolby Headphone is is a generic (doesn't work perfect with everyone- your "no sound in front of me" impression is a clear indicator that it doesn't match your own personal head shape) HRTF (head-related transfer function) generator - the same effect can be achieved at the mixing level (producing 2-channel sound that sounds great and 3D on headphones but congested and weird on any but near-field setup speakers) or with a dummy head at the time of recording (which still has the same problems the first one has, plus is nearly impossible to record anything that isn't done as a single take).

Most high-end aficionados will tell you that even the best headphones pale in comparison to even a modest speaker setup when it comes to soundstage. We don't listen to phones for soundstage. We listen for detail, sound signature and fun. Or at least I do.

So, my thoughts are that 2-channel will be around for a while, at least. 4+ channel audio is great for film soundtracks (home theatre) and games (which mix positional audio in real-time), but for music I think is more of a novelty. For one, look at how expensive many audiophile-grade speakers are. Now imagine that instead of a system having two, you've got five. I'll stick with my HD650s.

Dolby headphone works perfectly with 5.1 recordings, it only presented rear sound when I listened to a standard stereo recording. Therefore my impression is based off the original recording, not my personal head shape?

I listen to headphones not only for detail but for soundstage, there is no reason a headphone couldn't match a dipole speaker setup. Perhaps I wasn't clear in my initial post but listening to 5.1 audio on my headphones is as good as a speaker system costing 10 times more not to mention the perfect room acoustics, it just isn't doable for everyone.

When 5.1 audio and dolby headphones opens up my headphones into this unbelievably wide soundstage filled arena and reveals nuances that would otherwise be missed, I wouldn't expect anyone to call it a novelty. That's like saying we should be listening to 2.1 audio and movies and 5.1 and above is a gimmick, why shouldn't music be coming from behind and traveling from the chin up the forehead?

I appreciate your reply but you don't need to quote my thread in it's entirety, that would make for a very long thread if everyone did that...

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ok.

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Hi from Bob Schulein,

I have developed an experimental binaural audio with HD video technique for capturing a point of view "you are there" experience from a musical performance. I call the process ImmersAV, in that you become immersed in an audio/video experience.

If interested, I have uploaded two examples to You Tube:

YouTube - Rehab Fat Brass UW Manitowoc Session June 2009

and

YouTube - Little Bird of Heaven - The Ackermans - Longmont Colorado - November 11, 2008

There are about 10 others examples as well. If you search You Tube for ImmersAV you can find them all.
Some examples have an audio video sync issue do to the You Tube up load process. I am currently working on a solution for that problem.

Other postings will be coming as I have ramped up my production schedule.

My interest at this point is in obtaining feedback as to the entertainment value of such productions.

I have many yet to be tried production techniques involving multiple video and audio points of view, for the future.

Also if you download the HQ version from You Tube and use Quick Time to create an
i pod file version, the productions will be preserved with good audio and video fidelity.

All comments and suggestions welcome.

Bob Schulein

Graphicism - you may want to check this thread: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/ho...ration-361251/ I can't remember if you'd contributed towards it or not.

I have a few observations on Dolby Headphone:

• Hardware implementations are far superior to the software versions I've tried. I used the Foobar2000 plugin with the version from either WinDVD or PowerDVD. Compared to my Xonar D2 or JVC SU-DH1 it's very lacking.
• Dolby Headphone can render stereo recordings in front of you. I just suspect you have it set up incorrectly.
• Soundstage from stereo recordings with Dolby Headphone is very much like a stage: i.e. in front of you. This can still give excellent 3d imaging with depth cues. For recordings with particularly good stereo imaging, there can even be a surround like effect. There's no need to waste all the great stereo music out there.
• Upmixing stereo to 5.1 is generally bad. I've tried various ways of doing it and all just mess with decent stereo imaging.
• Dolby Headphone should be regarded as an alternative to headphones with an already speaker like headstage. The two should be regarded as being mutually exclusive. Angled drivers are usually the first indication of bad synergy here.

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Hi Bob, thanks for sharing your binaural audio. While nicely detailed and layered it is only emitting from the rear speakers much like my stereophonic music run on Dolby Headphone. It's been almost 30 minutes and the video is still loading, would it be possible to upload your videos to a dedicated server for faster playback?

Have you heard "Hello" demo at Ramseur Records recording, while not quite as wide I get a very good sense of positioning right in the middle of the music.

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Yes I have read that thread while researching the subject. It would seem his goal was to see as he said "What can we put before DHW to change a 2 channel stereo track into a 5.1 surround track" which from my understanding cannot be done.

1. The JVC SU-DH1 looks promising, I'll do my researching and maybe pickup one of these.
2. I wouldn't know how else to set it up, are you sure? ... If it only came from the front 2 speakers this also wouldn't be the desired 5.1 effect but how would I even go about doing that?
3. This would be interesting to listen to however I think the bonus of headphones over speakers is we can be immersed in the music, rather than sat in front of it?
4. Right, isn't that what the Xonar D2 or JVC SU-DH1 does?
5. I thought angled drivers created more of a speaker like headstage, that is what there marketing feature is.

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Hey Bob, this is really very cool. Thanks for sharing.

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Taking this thought further I went on the search for a surround sound test which I found available for download from lynnemusic.com along with a nice selection of 5.1 Dolby Digital AC3 audio.

5.1 Surround Test File
AC3 decoder 0.9.3

Playing this without Dolby Headphone enabled sure enough front right and front left were coming from the rear while rear right and rear left were coming from the front. With Dolby Headphone enabled everything was in it's right place. This confirmed what I was hearing with stereophonic music; front right and left were simply missing from the audio file. By now I'm thinking; what if I could combine both the effects of Dolby Headphone enabled and disabled at the same time. In other words play the same stereophonic audio file in foobar with Dolby Headphone turned on and in winamp with no effects at the exact same time. For this to work I paused winamp at 0.05 waited for foobar to reach the exact time and hit play on winamp, this took a lot of attempts to get right! This Frankenstein method while creating the desired effect clearly isn't an answer to my soundstage quest. This is a work in progress.



Just to quickly break down what I'm hearing; playing one song in stereophonic Dolby Headphone and a completely different stereophonic file in winamp I can clearly hear both songs, that's how much headstage distance I'm getting. On a side note; stereophonic Dolby Headphone playback is ideal when listening to music and gaming, I like to listen to my own soundtrack while I game and find it pushes it far enough back to concentrate on and listen to the game while hearing my music in the background.

I must say, graphicism, you are true to your name. Every thread you start is accompanied with wonderful and descriptive illustrations -- kudos to you!

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1. Just a quick note on the JVC SU-DH1. It's flaw is that is doesn't have a dedicated line out. The built in headphone amp is alright but certainly not high end. The volume pot has positions where L+R aren't quite balanced correctly. I use it to feed a line in to other amps when required. Sounds OK to me but theoretically not ideal.
2. I'm sure. Dolby headphone is essentially a speaker and environment simulator. You feed it a front left and right signal and it should sound front left and right. According to Dolby, it's not HRTF based so direction should sound approximately correct for everyone.
3. For 5.1 music, 5.1 is the way to go. I'm not saying don't use it. The joy of Dolby Headphone for me is that it can be set to simulate stereo speakers. It allows you to hear the soundstage as if you were listening to near-field monitors (DH1) or speakers in a larger room (DH2 and DH3 - although I'm not entirely happy with the room effects). This does give good 3d imaging where it's present on the stereo recording. I tend to usually prefer music in front of me, as that's how I experience it at live events.
4. As above - the experience is still immersive. It just puts you in the audience rather than on stage with the musicians.
5. Yes. Angled drivers do create a more speaker like headstage. The trouble is - that's exactly what Dolby Headphone does. It's designed to sound like speakers placed ideally in a 'perfect room' when using headphones with a completely neutral headstage (i.e l+r drivers at 90 degrees, just next to your ears). If you add angled drivers it's a bit like moving the two front side speakers closer together. This may still sound acceptable for 5.1 but for stereo it destroys the 3d imaging intended when the record was mixed in a studio using monitors placed in a triangle with the sound engineer. For stereo recordings with headphones with angled drivers, you'd be better just using crossfeed, rather than Dolby Headphone. Live recordings are a bit different but usually have quite strong 3d cues if well recorded.

A good example of a stereo recording with decent 3d imaging is Lou Reed's 'Take a Walk on the Wild Side'. With Dolby Headphone, a good stereo speaker setup or headphones with angled drivers and crossfeed you can hear the backing singers move from out in front of you, to almost either side of you as they sing the 'Do Do...' bits. Lou Reed himself is just in front of you throughout with most of the instruments at different distances and angles in front.

Thank You Grapicism,

Yes I have reviewed the reference You Tube posting ""Hello" demo at Ramseur Records" and find it interesting. Thank you for the link. It has certainly been produced in the spirit of that which I have developed. I do believe that such a process can be further developed to produce "Real World" Entertainment such that the viewer listener focuses on the content and does not get distracted with the technology.

As to posting some of my experimental productions, I would like to do so via an FTP site for which I have access. As I am new to this web site, I am not that familiar with the most efficient and proper methods of communication. If you would like to contact me for some advice on more effective sharing, please contact me at:

schulein@ameritech.net.

I am particularly interested in posting a some what technical movie that allows one to better judge the imaging accuracy of my process.

I am also working on an additional way of presenting such program material via two loudspeakers using a process called transaural audio. This technology has a sound scientific base but has, in my view, lacked a good application outlet.

I look forward to your comments.

Best regards,
Bob Schulein

Just a thought. The fact that you are experiencing a convincing 5.1 mix over headphones (albeit using surround virtualisation) proves that surround information can be conveyed via a stereo mix. Hence you could still have pre-recorded stereo music but with the surround information embedded in the mix. The issue is that it is very much dependent on the listening equipment. You would have to mix music differently for speakers than how you would for headphones.

Schulein - I'm interested to hear your results with a 2 speaker setup. I'm completely convinced of the ability of stereo headphones to convey surround sound but it's rare that stereo speakers manage to render anything as convincingly behind me.

Thank you Sherwood, I find it helps to describe whatever it is I'm banging on about!

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Sounds promising and I actually might have the CD if it contains Satellite of love; I have a bunch boxed of which the majority are ripped to FLAC. I'll dig it out and give my impressions on that a little later.

1. Yeah I'm not too sure about it, I read that the imported one has an AC connection otherwise it's batteries only which I kinda got the impression it's not a real piece of hifi equipment. Question is whats the cheapest 'decent' Dolby Headphone solution available?
2. Yes you would think so but stereophonic music is coming from the rear until I load up a 5.1 track, where the test track was correct placement. Could you test this yourself?
3. I'm using DH1. What surprises me is that it gives me more soundstage than I thought possible... what with all this soundstage talk in headphones, which are better for it and so on means very little to me now... it's all in the recording and how you feed it to the headphone.
4. Even from the perspective of listening from the audience the sound isn't just coming from the front, it usually engulfs the entire room, resonates, vibrates and so on. I do hear what you're saying though.
5. Crossfeed does next to nothing for me while Dolby Headphone wows me.

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Well loading up a 5.1 recording is very 3-dimensional while stereophonic music using the above method of playing 2 files at once just gives me a much wider sounding stereo.

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I'll e-mail you later Bob, I would very much like to hear them without the youtube compression and share my thoughts and suggestions with you.

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What headphone would you be refering to? (HD555, HD595s, HD580s or HD600?)