[Skycyclepilot]

You're welcome. Considering the number of hours I've got invested in this journey, I'm glad someone else was able to get something out of it.

Enjoy!!! But a word of warning... Now that you are able to get perfect imaging on headphones, your budget might suffer. I never dreamed I'd fork out a thousand dollars for headphones on what little I make! And I'm already yearning for something even better... Uggghhh...

 

[Prosny]

I don't know about that. I was the kind of person to always want the latest model of anything, and was always dissatisfied after some days. Pretty stressful situation I must say. One day I just stopped worrying about it and enjoyed what I had. Probably related to the fact that until now I've never had something that was "good enough" to enjoy it and make me forget about its flaws. I noticed it first going from a 125cc bike (which I was always ranting about, since it was suuuuper slow) to my current KTM 625. I thought I would hunger for more power, and though it did happen in the beginning, it stopped by itself not long after. Same thing happened after upgrading my headphones: loved the transition from nothing but cheap iems to my HD600s, wanted more after a while, then fell in love with their sound signature (and discovered how better they got with some careful EQ) and stopped caring about other headphones in the same category.

Sure, there are a million other things I would want, but I'm not the kind of person to have two things for the same exact purpose.

I just hope you can find your "peace" in that, since that's a very bad illness for your wallet

 

[Skycyclepilot]

I don't know about that. I was the kind of person to always want the latest model of anything, and was always dissatisfied after some days. Pretty stressful situation I must say. One day I just stopped worrying about it and enjoyed what I had. Probably related to the fact that until now I've never had something that was "good enough" to enjoy it and make me forget about its flaws. I noticed it first going from a 125cc bike (which I was always ranting about, since it was suuuuper slow) to my current KTM 625. I thought I would hunger for more power, and though it did happen in the beginning, it stopped by itself not long after. Same thing happened after upgrading my headphones: loved the transition from nothing but cheap iems to my HD600s, wanted more after a while, then fell in love with their sound signature (and discovered how better they got with some careful EQ) and stopped caring about other headphones in the same category.

Sure, there are a million other things I would want, but I'm not the kind of person to have two things for the same exact purpose.

I just hope you can find your "peace" in that, since that's a very bad illness for your wallet

Thanks for the encouragement. I learned - the hard way - to live within my means many years ago, but my tastes do run toward the expensive stuff. If I truly want the next step up in headphones, I'll save for them and pay for them when I get them. Not putting things on credit has a way of making you evaluate whether you really want a given thing enough to pay the asking price. I will occasionally use a 'six months, same as cash' offer, but I rarely do even that, and when I do, I always wind up paying it off in a couple of months. Nothing can ruin you financially faster than a pocket full of credit cards!

P. S. If I did go for the next level in headphones, I'd sell my current ones. I'm like you about that - I don't need two sets, although I am stuck with a pair of HE400i headphones right now, because I can't seem to give them away!

 

[71 dB]

I would assume that that would be from a forward facing bisector line, straight out from the center point, directly between the eardrums... Here's what I do know - when I turn off the delay, the illusion is that the center moves to a point at least halfway between the center line and the left ear. I'm very much a person of math and science, and I can't explain it, but it is what it is.

It's just the arrival horizontal angle of the sound, in other words the inverse function (actually an approximation, because I believe the inverse function can't be expressed with elemetary functions) of function ITD = r * (alpha + sin(alpha)) / c, where alpha is the angle of the sound in radians, r is the radius of a ball approximating the head and c is the speed of sound. I use values r = 0.085 m and c = 345 m/s, which is pretty accurately the speed of sound in my room temperature (the common value 343 m/s is for 20°C/68°F, but my room is a few degrees warmer than that).

It seems that our hearing adapts to constant ILD shift a bit. If I listen to music with headphones so that right channel is boosted a couple of dBs for several minutes, it starts to sound somewhat centered and if I then remove the boost, the sound moves to left, but returns to center in a few minutes. Maybe it's just me who has experienced this. We should never evaluate the changes immediately after a change, but after a minute or so to let adaptation take place. Same with crossfeed. Exposing our ears with excessive ILD makes our hearinf adapt to excessive ILD and then when we put crossfeed on, the soundstage seems to collapse narrow at first, but after a minute or so, it has expanded back when our hearing has adapted to more natural levels of ILD. Kind of Motion-induced Blindness for spatial hearing. I believe the problem is the lack of supporting information from other senses. When you walk from a room to another room with different acoustics and size, our eyes inform our brain about the change in acoustic space and our hearing knows the spatial information will chance accordingly. When we adjust sound listened with headphones, our eyes don't register chance in acoustic environment, but the sound chances. It confuses our hearing and adaptation time is needed. I realized this when listening to my own binaural recordings with headphones. I had recorded coming home from out including several changes in acoustics. Those changes sounds VERY dramatic when listening to the recording, because I am sitting still in my room and my eyes tell me the acoustics should not chance but it does. In real life anyone hardly even notices the changes because they are expected and logical. A lot of stuff we "hear" is actually our brain/senses fooling us rather than our soundgear doing strange things.

 

[Skycyclepilot]

It's just the arrival horizontal angle of the sound, in other words the inverse function (actually an approximation, because I believe the inverse function can't be expressed with elemetary functions) of function ITD = r * (alpha + sin(alpha)) / c, where alpha is the angle of the sound in radians, r is the radius of a ball approximating the head and c is the speed of sound. I use values r = 0.085 m and c = 345 m/s, which is pretty accurately the speed of sound in my room temperature (the common value 343 m/s is for 20°C/68°F, but my room is a few degrees warmer than that).

It seems that our hearing adapts to constant ILD shift a bit. If I listen to music with headphones so that right channel is boosted a couple of dBs for several minutes, it starts to sound somewhat centered and if I then remove the boost, the sound moves to left, but returns to center in a few minutes. Maybe it's just me who has experienced this. We should never evaluate the changes immediately after a change, but after a minute or so to let adaptation take place. Same with crossfeed. Exposing our ears with excessive ILD makes our hearinf adapt to excessive ILD and then when we put crossfeed on, the soundstage seems to collapse narrow at first, but after a minute or so, it has expanded back when our hearing has adapted to more natural levels of ILD. Kind of Motion-induced Blindness for spatial hearing. I believe the problem is the lack of supporting information from other senses. When you walk from a room to another room with different acoustics and size, our eyes inform our brain about the change in acoustic space and our hearing knows the spatial information will chance accordingly. When we adjust sound listened with headphones, our eyes don't register chance in acoustic environment, but the sound chances. It confuses our hearing and adaptation time is needed. I realized this when listening to my own binaural recordings with headphones. I had recorded coming home from out including several changes in acoustics. Those changes sounds VERY dramatic when listening to the recording, because I am sitting still in my room and my eyes tell me the acoustics should not chance but it does. In real life anyone hardly even notices the changes because they are expected and logical. A lot of stuff we "hear" is actually our brain/senses fooling us rather than our soundgear doing strange things.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my eyes jitter badly, especially when I move my eyes to either extreme. The point where they jitter the least causes me to always look ahead with my head turned slightly to the left. And that means my left ear is further back than my right. From what you're saying, it makes sense to believe that my brain is now trained to expect any sound directly in front of me to reach my left ear later than my right. When I put on headphones, that does not happen, so my brain thinks the sound is coming from a few degrees left of center. After a lifetime of this, my brain is hardwired, and I cannot retrain it. So, I must use a delay to my left ear to compensate when using headphones. It has taken me decades to figure this out.

 

[71 dB]

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my eyes jitter badly, especially when I move my eyes to either extreme. The point where they jitter the least causes me to always look ahead with my head turned slightly to the left. And that means my left ear is further back than my right. From what you're saying, it makes sense to believe that my brain is now trained to expect any sound directly in front of me to reach my left ear later than my right. When I put on headphones, that does not happen, so my brain thinks the sound is coming from a few degrees left of center. After a lifetime of this, my brain is hardwired, and I cannot retrain it. So, I must use a delay to my left ear to compensate when using headphones. It has taken me decades to figure this out.

Sorry, if I missed your previous posts. My time spent on this forum has been limited and I don't read all the posts. What you say is very interesting and also makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Skycyclepilot]

Sorry, if I missed your previous posts. My time spent on this forum has been limited and I don't read all the posts. What you say is very interesting and also makes perfect sense to me.

No need to apologize! None of us read every post. The only other theory I've come up with is that my brain processes sound entering my right ear more quickly that it does my left. I think my new theory makes more sense, but I'll never know for sure. What I do know is that I'm not imagining it. If I turn the delay off, then forget, and put on headphones later, I immediately notice that everything is shifted to the left, a lot. It's been a consistent issue for four decades, across many pieces of hifi gear.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

To the OP, is there any sonic situation where your perception of sound direction is not off from the truth? Say when talking to people?
Very interesting stuff.

 

[Skycyclepilot]

To the OP, is there any sonic situation where your perception of sound direction is not off from the truth? Say when talking to people?
Very interesting stuff.

Other than on headphones, the only time I notice it is when I'm sitting in the sweet spot, listening to stereo speakers, and even then the effect is much less dramatic. I think it has something to do with my brain not having visual cues. I don't notice it watching TV, listening to live music, or when talking to others.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Other than on headphones, the only time I notice it is when I'm sitting in the sweet spot, listening to stereo speakers, and even then the effect is much less dramatic. I think it has something to do with my brain not having visual cues. I don't notice it watching TV, listening to live music, or when talking to others.

Perhaps your ear canals are shaped such that sound takes shorter time to reach your left ear than right ear from the side but not the front?

 

[Skycyclepilot]

Perhaps your ear canals are shaped such that sound takes shorter time to reach your left ear than right ear from the side but not the front?

That could be a factor, but sound travels about 1.5 inches in 120 µS, which is the amount of delay I have to use to correct the issue, so I think there is more to it than that.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

That could be a factor, but sound travels about 1.5 inches in 120 µS, which is the amount of delay I have to use to correct the issue, so I think there is more to it than that.

You have gone the whole nine yards of equalizing the left and right ears independently using say Sinegen https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysrcmejhalnj8ty/SineGen.zip?dl=0 and independent channel freeform graphic equalizers on EqualizerAPO eh?

 

[Skycyclepilot]

You have gone the whole nine yards of equalizing the left and right ears independently using say Sinegen https://www.dropbox.com/s/ysrcmejhalnj8ty/SineGen.zip?dl=0 and independent channel freeform graphic equalizers on EqualizerAPO eh?

Oh yes. Many, many hours over the course of many weeks... I can get the image somewhat centered that way, but the soundstage and imaging suffer greatly. It just sounds horrible - washed out, indistinct... Hearing tests show that my ears are relatively well matched. I do not have substantial hearing loss in either ear, relative to the other, at any frequency. A few posts above, I describe how my eyesight has actually trained my brain to compensate for the fact that I look straight ahead with my head turned slightly to the left, in order to keep my eyes from jittering.

By the way, here's a tone generator I like to use for just such testing...

http://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

 

[bigshot]

I think the solution is to just keep your eyes closed and let your brain recenter!

 

[Skycyclepilot]

I think the solution is to just keep your eyes closed and let your brain recenter!

With over fifty years of my brain being programmed the way it is, that might take a very long time!!!