[JohnnyLightOn]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while. Let's say you were in the mountains, walking through a meadow. A perfect day, blue sky. Suddenly, you hear music, in perfect fidelity at high volume. It comes from the sky and the surrounding mountains. Like from impossibly huge speakers that you can't see. It's as if god or another powerful force were playing the music.

The sound waves would reach your ears in a certain way. That's how you know where the sound is coming from. It would not sound like it was coming from inside your head.

Why is it so hard to replicate this through headphones? I understand there can never be the visceral impact of the bass if you were actually walking outside and didn't have a subwoofer to produce that impact. But what about the rest of the sound? Is the knowledge and technology for the production of sound waves very far away from being able to produce this experience?

 

[Angelfly]

You're talking about trying to trick and deceive a machine that's been in development millions of years though. It would be becoming cleverer than evolution. At least that's what I think.

 

[gorman]

This technology exists. See these threads:

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showt...light=binaural
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showt...light=binaural

Binaural recordings are potentially awesome. The problem is they only work properly when listened through headphones and this severely limits their commercial potential...

PS
Definitely try to listen to that binaural matches file (in one of the two threads I linked).

I forgot this: http://www.quietamerican.org/

 

[breez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnnyLightOn Why is it so hard to replicate this through headphones? I understand there can never be the visceral impact of the bass if you were actually walking outside and didn't have a subwoofer to produce that impact. But what about the rest of the sound? Is the knowledge and technology for the production of sound waves very far away from being able to produce this experience?

Try binaural recordings. They produce a very nice out of the head sound. Normal recordings are made for speakers and lack this effect.

 

[JohnnyLightOn]

Thanks! I can't wait to listen to them!

 

[hugz]

holy cow. i am amazed. really. that shocked me so much, i couldn't beleive i was wearing headphones. it was almost uncomfortable because the sound wasn't coming from where it should

edit: i showed a friend on msn

- Poo - says:
omg im tripping out
- Poo - says:
my ears are bleeding
hugzz\\rip says:
u like?
- Poo - says:
im scared
hugzz\\rip says:
that's pretty f*ing dope ey
- Poo - says:
all my hair on my arms is standing up lol
- Poo - says:
cuz its trippy

 

[Aman]

Is it me or does the amount of static coming out of these recordings somewhat hurt the recordings?

I mean, the positioning is great, but it appears to be hurting the sound quality at the same time.

Great finds though! I will certainly be looking into this more!
Andrew

 

[Annihilator]

yeah, I love the effect of binaural stuff. I've now been playing a lot of my music through windvd using the dolby headphone effect, its so cool since it feels like the sound is coming from far away.

 

[Kikkoman]

I had never listened to binaural recordings before, but wow they're pretty cool. My favorite from what I listened to has got to be this one. I love the sound of the guy ripping the bag.

 

[Hajime]

Johnny,

They're not that hard to make. If it weren't illegal, I (or you) could record any pre-existing song using a binaural microphone so that it sounded as if the music was coming from above.

 

[Hajime]

Actually, that's a pretty cool idea. I wonder why no one has thought of it before. I wish I had some money so that I could try that out. It would be pretty simple to re-record any cd so that it sounded like a live performance using binaural microphones.

 

[acs236]

Hajime, wouldn't the positioning be only as good as the speakers you used to make the binaural recording?

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hajime Actually, that's a pretty cool idea. I wonder why no one has thought of it before. I wish I had some money so that I could try that out. It would be pretty simple to re-record any cd so that it sounded like a live performance using binaural microphones.

A $20000 speaker rig plus 20000 for room treatment plus a custom molded dummy head plus mikes plus recording gear isn't exactly what I'd call "pretty simple".

 

[Clown12]

I'm working on some software to do pretty much that - speaker simulation. I've got a few prototypes, but as with most projects it's a "work in progress".
At present i've got: some useful SSE2 code doing virtual-room FIR filters on directshow sources (phew) and I'm adding a d3d room to get some visualisation. The previous prototype had amazing sound

but bogged the cpu down too much.

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clown12 I'm working on some software to do pretty much that - speaker simulation. I've got a few prototypes, but as with most projects it's a "work in progress". At present i've got: some useful SSE2 code doing virtual-room FIR filters on directshow sources (phew) and I'm adding a d3d room to get some visualisation. The previous prototype had amazing sound but bogged the cpu down too much.

As far as music is concerned a speaker simulation doesn't have to be a realtime application, it has to be convincing.
The existing realtime speaker simulations based on reverb simulation are sounding god awful.I'd have no problem with preprocessing as long as the result offers a speakerlike soundstage and sounds good.