Binaural for Headphones: Your thoughts and votes please… - Page 4

I don't feel like buying whole new equipment for binaural, but I'd be interested in decent music recorded in binaural.

It's the closest thing to real surround sound for headphones I've heard.
Afterall, most of us have only two ears, right?

-Ed

not enough hard information to have the definitive answer but i am going to go out on a limb here and say probably.

interesting. my father worked for srs back when they were focusing on these big boxes that you attatched to your reciever. don't know the name. i think they have hooked up with sony to include some of their stuff in sony's cdp's etc. humm interesting. that was all about "surrond sound" without surrond speakers. is this different?

sounds like SRS "true surround" which can actually be very effective.

My Hughs Direct TV set top box includes this as an option for audio and most of the time i use it for watching movies when I don't want to fire up the big rig and go full surround.Since my TV has pretty good audio by itself (not great,not comparable to the main system but not too shabby and very listenable) it is a nice feature to have.
My TV monitor by comparison has a proprietary surround processor that sounds "croaky" and metallic when used.

(it also has an 'audio butcher" in the digital volume control.Sounds fine with the built in speakers but brutal when fed to the main rig)

i have not heard the Senn Hearo but out of the 5/2 surround matrix mix devices i have heard the Dolby and SRS are the best followed by nothing

I'd love to save up enough money to buy a recorder and some binaural in-ear style mics to make my own binaural recordings, even if they're not of music. Those recordings jimbobuk made are just astounding.

I voted for 1a because I'd like to buy binaural recording hardware. I'm not much of a fan of spatializers like Dolby Headphone, they just sound weird to me.

On the other hand, when I used to play Counter-Strike the "Headphone" mode of my SBLive! was very effective in presenting a "3D" soundfield, to the point that I could track people through walls good enough to be accused of using a wall-hack.

this need not be expensive at all and in fact can be done for a very small sum.

the recorder can be anything that will record portably-an old cassette walkman recorder,an early MD recorder (better acually for music),ipods,mp3 recorders.....

the binaural mic set is also a cheapie.Take an old pair of cheasy mini-headphones (the ones that come with most portable Cd players qualify) and remove the speakers.
Drill a hole in the plastic housing to allow the mounting of a couple of Panasonic mic capsules (element out dirctly where the holes in your ears would be),damp the plastic housing to eliminate mic cable and other mic noise (annoying as hell),use the original headphone cable and mini plug to plug into the recorder if it has mic bias or if not into a simple candy tin battery box carrying a nine volt battery ,two resistors and two caps plus connectors.
No way that whole thing costs more than ten bucks to make and it will kick major butt for recording ambient and nature sounds.

For music you will need the battery box which will allow for higher levels in the mic due to the jigher biasing from the nine volts PLUS a low end rolloff (caps there,just increase the size with a switch) which prevents overload at those frequencies-very important with live electronic music,not as important with live acoustic music .
and finally,if the recorder does not have a good input level adjustment you will need to add a volume pot-again dirt cheap.

Do this man.It is a blast to just walk down the street doing nothing special but recording events as you go then playing it back later.
You will be transplanted right back to the original "space" of the recording and if you close your eyes can place everything in the position it was originally but instead of visually this will be aurally-a much more sensitive method.your eyes may be able to fool you but never your ears !

I can provide links to the project if interested

rickmeister rex

The Soundman OKM MKII mic costs 120 Euros and might be worth a look for binaural recording: http://www.soundman.de/englisch/english.htm

Also, I'd be very willing to buy binaural equipment because I don't see binaural recording hitting the mass market anytime soon, be it due to the increased hassle of recording via a dummy head or maybe the fact that binaural recordings don't good through speakers (which, however, according to an article on Headwize is not true). I just downloaded PowerDVD which has the Dolby Headphone and it sounds really good. Certainly, it lacks the refinement or precision of normal headphone listening but the soundstage is immense. Great for movies, not so great for music.

I'm interested!

You got it man !

MICROPHONES FOR BINAURAL RECORDINGS

first stop is the ultimate resource.This gives you the "meat and potatos" of the Binaural Micset and Battery Box :

http://members.aol.com/MicDIYers/main.htm

similiar :

http://www.minidisc.org/homemade_mics.html

more :

[URL]http://web.telia.com/~u87124019/mics.html



The above are for the basic binaural micset.Next is the "Heaphones As Binaural Micset" link :

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

recording like this places the mics exactly where your ears are located so they produce a very accurate reperesentation of the space where the event.The problem is internal and external reflections off the hard plastic of the earcup.But this can be overcome with damping.

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this page shows commercial versions to give you some ideas.anything there can be done DIY without much cost of effort

http://web.telia.com/~u87124019/mics.html

some commercial battery box examples,again easily done DIY for cheap :

http://web.telia.com/~u87124019/mics.html

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Obviously if you are to get a true binaural recording you must either use your head as the L/R microphone block by mounting the mic elements in headphone enclosures or by mounting the mics on a pair of glasses with clips,or you must fool the mics into thinking there is a human head present.
you can do this with anything head shaped like a mannequin head or a football for instance,but it can not be a hard reflective surface !

If you choose a hard surface "fake head" then cover it entirely with an acoustically inert substance.

hope this is enough info to get you building and recording


enjoy

rickmeister

MORE


http://www.ravenswood.org.uk/roio/taping.html


Panasonic Mic element pdf-

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/...wm60_a_dne.pdf


mics in earbuds :

http://www.philarts.8k.com/diymics.htm



for an alternat take-M/S recording for loudspeaker playback

http://mp3forkidz.com/mic/index.html

that guy is off the hook and shows how far a simple little cany tin can take you !

Beautiful work

The linkwitcz Mod as done by Greg Szekeres

(yes,that Szekeres of the Szekeres amp)

http://www.pitt.edu/~szekeres/mic/mods.htm

I support more binaural recorded material. Not cheesy sound demonstrations but actual content: movies, music, sporting events etc.

I don't really care about turning standard stereo recordings into simulated binaural via expensive gimmicky equipment. The ability to record and produce awesome binaural recordings for basically nothing already exists.

Looking at a music server equivalent to a few thousand traditional CDs I say gimme gimmicky equipment as soon as possible.
Some of the few binaural recordings are nice, some don't work for me.
One of the benefits of virtual audio reality algorithms would be adjustability to your personal ears and the frequency response of your headphones.In the end even head movements could be covered, resulting in total immersion, something that binaural recordings can't provide.
The next step into this direction doesn't necessarily require a huge R&D budget or dedicated equipment.Your PC could transfer LS recordings into binaural recordings.Not in realtime naturally, but preprocessing is only a small inconvenience.
A few M.I.T. boys could probably program this, it's mostly well known physics and some not so well known psychology, the latter might be the harder part of the task.