Binaural and speakers?

[marios_mar]

Should great stereo recording supposed to sound like a binaural recording when reproduced through a great stereo speaker system?

Shouldnt that be the goal of every system. To make it life-like?

 

[gsferrari]

Sorry - you have mixed up the following :-

a] recording formats - binaural and stereo
b] reproduction format - speakers/headphones

speakers still reproduce only stereo sound and the "binauralizing" happens after reproduction. Doesnt work like natural surround (binaural recording).

you need format recorded in binaural format for headphones (using in-ear mics) OR binaural recordings specific to speakers (by placing stereo mic L and R at the same distance as your speakers at home - during recording - at the performance).


Or have I confused you even more

 

[marios_mar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari Sorry - you have mixed up the following :- a] recording formats - binaural and stereo b] reproduction format - speakers/headphones speakers still reproduce only stereo sound and the "binauralizing" happens after reproduction. Doesnt work like natural surround (binaural recording). you need format recorded in binaural format for headphones (using in-ear mics) OR binaural recordings specific to speakers (by placing stereo mic L and R at the same distance as your speakers at home - during recording - at the performance). Or have I confused you even more

I have not confused those two.

Just wondering:

Should the goals of stereo and binaural and their reproductions respectively be the same?

 

[Talonz]

Yes, AFAIK.

 

[waterpump]

Well not exactly...

Couple of points - speaker compatibility of binaural varies according to the degree of "binaurality" of the recording.

When recording a pair of spaced omni mics will be very speaker compatible, spaced omnis with a Jecklyn Disk will give wide stereo on speakers and a hint of binaural envelopment on phones, in ear mics give full binaural surround on phones, but will be not very speaker compatible, particularly for moving sound sources.

It is possible to convert a true binaural recording to speaker presentation by employing "crosstalk cancellation" (details not included here) and using bipolar speakers, that is a pair of speakers about 8 inches/ 20 cm apart. If you listen centre front facing the gap between the speakers at a distance of about 1.5 metres / 5ft there will be the illusion of enveloping surround sound. Off axis the illusion collapses.

But the key question is whether the recorded soundstage and presentation should be the same for speaker presentation and binaural recordings?

In my humble opinion NO.

Because of the ubiquitous and universal popularity of stereo - two speaker presentation, this has been taken as the standard soundstage to which all other realities are compared. It corresponds largely to an audience view of a stage performance of music and drama, which is how much live music and drama is presented in performance.

Yet our natural acoustic binaural perception is periphonic, all around, with some spatial weighting to the sides, which is compensated at the front to a large extent by visual perception. We are also able to track motion in sound very accurately, while stationary sound sources centre front and centre rear, without visual cues, can be ambiguous in perception.

Therefore in my recordings of pure live head binaural I pay particular attention to play to the strengths of binaural perception, generally placing key sound sources off centre, particularly at the front, and employing aesthetic movement, spatial choreography, which appears to minimise genetic differences of head/ear morphology, by engaging the powerful sound tracking ability of human auditory perception.

So binaural presentation opens up a whole new universe of spatial presentation and creativity hitherto largely untapped and, with the increasing popularity of headphone listening, is gathering momentum.

Therefore IMHO speaker presentation is totally different from binaural presentation.

dallas simpson. aka waterpump

 

[cosmopragma]

[size=small]WHERE...CAN...I...GET...THEM...?[/size] Quote:

Originally Posted by waterpump So binaural presentation opens up a whole new universe of spatial presentation and creativity hitherto largely untapped and, with the increasing popularity of headphone listening, is gathering momentum.

I second your first statement and doubt the latter.
30 years ago when I was a boy I've listened to my first binaural recording.
It was a radio play.
I instantly thought: "Boy, this is the future!"
But.....
The present doesn't keep what the future promised.
This future never came.
Today there are some radioplays and a few music recordings of varying quality on the market, and they are somewhat hard to obtain, at least in Europe.
Ironically these days probably headphones get as much playtime as speakers, but where are the binaural recordings?
Maybe if one of the Majors would jump in that could gain enough momentum for a huge market, but as usual they seem to be too dumb for realizing the potential. Quote:

Therefore in my recordings of pure live head binaural I pay particular attention to play to the strengths of binaural perception, generally placing key sound sources off centre, particularly at the front, and employing aesthetic movement, spatial choreography, which appears to minimise genetic differences of head/ear morphology, by engaging the powerful sound tracking ability of human auditory perception.

[size=small]WHERE...CAN...I...GET...THEM...?[/size]

 

[waterpump]

Your English is fine!

Free binaural soundscape downloads are available from my website
www.waterpump.f9.co.uk

Binaural Tracks of mine can be downloaded from emusic, also streamed from

www.emit.cc

Commercial Binaural Music releases I have recorded -

Live at Ambergate : Gordon Giltrap
Live at Lincoln : Ric Sanders Group
Down to the Wood : Martin Stephenson / Jim Hornsby.

Available from a variety of sources on the net.

In the pipeline : From Silence - Troy Donockley and Dave Bainbridge. Open Sky Records. Release date probably December 2004 through Voiceprint.

Try a search using binaural on google.

Look up Tchad Blake, and Mike Skeet.

BBC Radio recently did a radio drama "The Dark House" in binaural, there is a page on their website, the programme can be streamed, do a search on the BBC site,

Best,

dallas simpson.

 

[Jorg]

Great posts Dallas!

Welcome to Head-Fi and sorry about your wallet

Do you use some Hi-End headphones to reproduce binaural recordings? Also do you think that headphones with speaker-like presentation (Sony MDR-R10 or Audio-Technica ATH-L3000, both with angled drivers) are not good for binaural recordings?

 

[waterpump]

Hi Jorg!

I currently use Beyerdynamic 911's (excellent), previously Sennheiser 570's (very good). Binaural is quite robust in terms of spatial presentation if recorded well, (it will survive mp3 compression to about 1:8) and will be effective over a wide range of headphones, but the sound quality overall will vary acording to the quality of the headphones.

general point:

Earphones and etymotics give the best _spatial_ resolution, Open headphones come a close second for spatial resolution. Closed headphones give slightly lower spatial resolution, that is without considering actual _sound_ quality.

I have no experience of the headphone types you mention, sorry. Perhaps other members of the list can help??

The important thing in binaural reproduction is to deliver each channel of sound uniquely to each eardrum without any further filtering effect of the external ears (pinnae), and to totally avoid "crosstalk", that is left ear hearing some of the sound which should only be heard by the right ear and vice versa.

It is the crosstalk issue which compromises pure binaural perception when delivered on speakers.

best wishes

Dallas.

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by waterpump Earphones and etymotics give the best _spatial_ resolution, Open headphones come a close second for spatial resolution. Closed headphones give slightly lower spatial resolution, that is without considering actual _sound_ quality.

I've just used your fireworks piece for a quick A/B test.
Ety ER4 versus Stax Lambda versus Sennheiser HD 600.
You are totally right, in terms of spatial resolution the Etys are the winner.
BTW, thanks for sharing.