No, it's fully linked to the shape of your ears, head and torso, imposing the sonic signature to what your ear.  Headphones remove this information and your brain is confused.  If you use HRTF, it helps, but it has to be your specific one.  A Smyth Realizer would be the best solution, but I'm...

I think this is why they're made like that.

With headphones, the shape of the ear is not put to good use either.  The sound comes from the side and is not far from getting straight in the ear canal. But even if the pinnae is imposing it's signature, it will be for sounds fired on the side, horizontally.  And I hear them like they're...

  I think this is all wrong...  We agree that the brain learned to process the signal captured.  However, the height info comes from the exact shape of the ears, from comb filtering.  Now when we use headphones, the influence of the shape of the ear is lost.  If the HRTF used to replicate this...

Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon (DSOM) was mentioned in the thread and is not in the document.   I'm also surprised Daft Punk Random Access Memories is not there, I'll have to join the thread!

I have the exact same problem OP has.   I have no problem hearing a great stereo image from my speakers, but the same stereo material on headphones comes in an arc, left, top and right.  There's never anything forward with headphones for me.   I have been searching for a while for a...