Binaural for Headphones: Your thoughts and votes please… - Page 2

No opinion?

Oops.
Only 34 votes in a poll about recording and postprocessing technologies which could turn headphones into a vastly superior way of reproducing sound.
Somewhat disappointing for a headphone related forum.

Could have something to do with the poll being in the lounge instead of in "formats" where i actually had considered moving it.
Even though this is essentially a headphone web site most here are pefectly happy to have one good set of cans and an amp to drive them.
The rest of us ,the vocal minority , get into the minutea of every aspect of headphone sound and psychoacoustics/ambient sound.but the major portion of the membership we are not,we just post on these topics more
Why else has there been no uproar about the lack of Dolby Headphone technology being available on a wide scale or better yet ,encoded onto every DVD ?

so anyway,I still may move this but in the mean time for your reading pleasure from the early days ,some say the Golden Age,of high fidelity-1954 (didn't even know there were cans then used for hi fi sound,just studio use I thought) :










http://www.phantomprod.com/vinAd54Binaural2Rec5.jpg

http://www.phantomprod.com/vinAd54Binaural2Rec6.jpg

Enjoy !

Quote:

"To achieve this, simply interchange one ear-phone from each set. This leaves little leeway because of the short wires used on the phones, but listening with heads together can be even more interesting especially if your friend is a member of the opposite sex"

i will take that as an OK to move the thread then without drawing your wrath dude


really could be an interesting discussion with more involvement

***Edit***

Moved it here to "tweaks" and "Accessories" .will remove the redirect later

binaurallly yours

rickeraptor

For me personally there is not much in audio that gets me exited anymore.Yes I still read amp and headphone reviews but my system is pretty much locked in so it is just to keep abreast of developments.And really there is nothing earth shattering going on in audio unless you are one that is staying on top of PC audio developments and sysem integration (WIFI etc.) so what keeps me here is the people and the chance to maybe impart some knowledge I that I have gathered from years of screwing around in audio but this,this type of topic is a passion with me.

All things being equal there really is no where to go in audio on the recreation of the bandwidth of music,the harmonic structure which comes down to personal taste more often than not anyway and not referenced to any actual live music event.But the "time and space" experience is still unchartered territory.
With loudspeakers we have surround sound which sounds to my ears nothing like any performance i have ever been to ,though some hafler matrix recordings come damn close to recreating the experience with a live recording.,and is instead a "special effect" for movie viewing.something it exells at and i for one could never go back to mono or stereo TV.
Headphones ? Other than crossfeed to blend the wide image produced by stereo and meant to be played over speakers where there is a natural interaction with both speakers and both ears and Dolby Headphone meant for the recreation of the movie experience over cans there is nothing,nada,zip.
Yes,there are various DSPs out there for perfroming gee wiz tricks but these are not a serious attempt to recreate the "live performance" using headphones as the medium.

My headphone surround system is all DIY and custom tailored to my personal preferences and my sensibilities as to what i want to hear.Being all passive it does not do an exact movie sound decode but comes close enough for hand grenades which means i am very comfortable with it as my main surround/headphones interface.
And like with my speaker surround system it does very well at extracting ambience if it is already present from a live recording.

But again falls short of fooling me into thinking i am in the concert hall or stadium.Uncannily close at times but still short.

Binaural is DEAD ON in the recreation of the actual space where an even took place.If you close your eyes and listen you can "see" where every sound is located that was recorded and the ones from behind can be startling when they pop up or a voice says "excuse me sir" and you never heard the person coming up from behind.

As i said earlier i dabble in recording some events using a DIY binaural micset into a battery box/preamp/level control for use with an MD recorder and if done right and you watch out for overloading your MD player input,use proper filtration to cut the low end,again so as not to overload the recorder,the end result is startling in the realistic "living' image preserved in the recording.
and since as i also have said many times i find the recreation of the live event size to be of interest i am always checking various sources for any new thing just for adding to my memory banks (my brain) where it is pushed around,tore up,recreated and then spit out with hopefully some kind of recognizable conclusion.i do my best thinking in my sleep and always keep a pad and pen on the nightstand for those "WATSON ! Come HERE !" moments.

So on the theme of this thread about binaural synthesis from a mono or stereo signal i find the most interesting information to come from the U.S. government,N.A.S.A. branch in fact.There are papers for download describing mechanisms for tracking the human head in relation to the video monitor which adjusts the signal accordingly so no matter which way you turn your head the image on the screen in relation to the sound is still dead on !

Pretty damn cool,stuff from my viewpoint and if i were a betting person the only sensible direction for any valid headphone based "surround sound" system to go.This is binaural which is the only TRUE surround because it actually recreates space as it would be if you were there in the flesh .Something surround may approximate but not re-create realisticly.Surround is FX (Special Effect) and is meant for movies but falls WAY short with music and especially with music and headphones which have entirely different requirements than do loudspeakers.

I have like a bazillion links to this stuff if anyone is interested in the technical part f this and can post them

good stuff this binaural thing



surrounded by ricks


.

Flea Bag --

If binaural recordings become the standard medium of headphone listening...
Then headphones will be extremely close to stereo speaker systems in terms of reproduction quality.

The repercussions of making binaural recordings standard would unfathomable (in favor of headphones).

Binaural recordings make sound effects and soundstaging near perfect on headphones.
I heard a binaural recording of a Pink Floyd album (don't ask me how ) and it was nothing short of amazing.

It was an audio epiphany.

BANGPOD

I'm not anyone but please take the time and post your link collection.
My GF will hate it when I'll spend dozens of hours studying a technology not available yet, and maybe never will be available.

Hey,that never held me back !

Who knows,maybe you will be the one to make it happen some day.

The study of the time/space relationship and how we perceive it is something,maybe the only thing , in audio reproduction that exites me personally.I think everything else has been covered and anything new is just the same old in a new package.
But time/phase/spoace is still yet to be conquered.

i will post the links in the morning

Other than the reproduction of real low bass yes.True low frequencies are felt and not heard and this tactile bass can only be approximated by headphones.
Yeah there are gadgets to fool you into thinking you are receiving the bass but it is just not the same.

Another area where loudspeakers will always exell is group participation : Parties,family viewing of a DVD,sharing music with freinds.even though you can run multiple cans from a headphone distribution amp it is just not the same.Headphone listening is a personal,maybe even selfish act.you strap on and shut out the world (not always a bad thing )


but for a personal experience of just how real a prerecorded sound or event can be i have not yet heard binaural bettered.The positioning is uncanny but only if you close your eyes !
Looking around the room and having the position of the recording follow blows the "reality' to h*ll.That is why the head tracking technology is so cool.It eliminates the only weakness i can "see" (pun intended folks )

shoot ! clean forgot about the links.....


coming soon,really man,i promise.............

OK,i have several windows open so i will be updating this while surfing to the links to double check content but here is a start.Most but not all will be highly technical but the fluff is easy,the true understanding is in the details,enjoy :

http://interface.cipic.ucdavis.edu/C...CIL_whatis.htm

ooopsy ! got caught up in some other areas but here is some essential downloads in pdf,some a bit heady but nothing ventured nothing gained right ?

http://interface.cipic.ucdavis.edu/C...blications.htm

A link page with enough to keep the average human busy for years,but since I am not average I have waded through this mess in the past :

http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~wareing/3daudio.htm

another links site but a tad easier to digest and more recognizable formats to get your feet wet kinda sorta :

http://www.dform.com/inquiry/spataudio.html

some distance perception wav files for your listening pleasure

http://ear.berkeley.edu/auditory_lab/binaural2.html


Doggies ! Yup ! I said doggies !

http://www.noogenesis.com/binaural/dogs.aiff.html

hold tight kiddies,this journey has just begun !


for the impatient or the adventurous here is a link to assembling your own binaural micset for doing field work.Beleive me when i tell you it will blow your mind if it is something you never heard before.Just walk down a busy street with a couple of mics taped to your sunglasses and record the event ,then play it back later in a dark room.
WHOAH ! Just like being there !
check the various links off the page for detailed instructions.I use the rat shack mics with the linkwitz fet mod all the time (but with a mic pre stage which bypasses the MD mic in) and total cost is about five bucks not counting the recorder.

http://www.krisbee.com/Field%20Recording.html

for "stealth" recording live concerts.Not my thing but different strokes man.BTW-watch that bass guys ! It WILL overload the recorder input if the bass is not rolled off ! Use a low cut filter cap !

http://art.simon.tripod.com/stealth.html

MATLAB modelling software for the true geek :

http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/home/Mic...download2.html

All for now and a good start.Next up : U.S.Gov experiments and the before mentioned head-tracking software.

see ya soon or maybe not

*********************************************

round ll -

Virtual Environments

http://www.itofisher.com/PEOPLE/sfis...nce-pdfrev.pdf

recommended reading (yes,an actual printed book !):

http://www.stereosoundbook.com/

this NASA/AES document is around 7MB so you low bandwidth guys better think hard-BTW,written in1972 !

http://humanfactors.arc.nasa.gov/pub...ralization.pdf

more :

http://humanfactors.arc.nasa.gov/web...ils.php?id=286

estimating binaural spectral azimuth

http://vision.ece.uic.edu/papers/199...n/sap_malF.pdf


A few NASA binaural experiments :

http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltr...1-cr211255.pdf

NASA binauaral simulation analysis

http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltr...icrasd-mej.pdf


3D hearing test wavs
http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/hdrl/take_Test.html

NASA Synthetic HRTFs patent

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...&RS=PN/5438623

and for a synapsis of where this is headed read this description :

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/.../NASA.3d.sound

and this :

http://www.hitl.washington.edu/scivw.../3D-audio.refs

ICAD Keynote-easily understood by the layman

http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/icad2001/ICADkeynote.pdf

and so,on to Polhemus Tracking ,the REAL meat of the head tracking binaural audio signal :

http://www.polhemus.com/MotionTracki...ualReality.htm

actual head tracking device products (same device that was used in LOTR to scan animation on the actors body).these are not toys nor for the hobbyist but are for reference only (unless you have about ten grand handy and a lot of free time for the programming )

[URL]http://www.polhemus.com/fastrak.htm[URL]

http://www.polhemus.com/LIBERTY.htm





enough to digest for now I think and thinking is what this is all about right ? That and headaches but good stuff all the same and where it is my belief we are headed down the road in headphone land-full tracking binaural sound with 3D images.what other final frontier is there ?

more later if you have not had enough yet,some actual tests done where heavy equipment trainers are critiqued

surrounded by ricks,and all speaking binauralese......... Huh ?

Well, emh, that should keep me busy for quite a long time.
You've asked in another thread what wintertime is good for.
How could we ever find time for exploring such complex phenomena without winter?
Thanks for the great linklist.