[bigshot]

Castle, I've never noticed a frequency response change affecting the perceived sound location. And I've never perceived distance in front of me using headphones as I do with speaker soundstage. Is there a specific response correction that does this? If it is possible for me to hear distance like with speakers using headphones, how would I go about doing that? I've tried binaural recordings and that didn't lead anywhere further away than the tip of my nose and the back side of my head.

Is it different for each listener? If so, would it be caused by the human ears, not the difference between headphones? You couldn't say, "This specific set of headphones sounds like it has distance" and have it apply to everyone equally, right? It sounds to me like an anomaly of someone's hearing, not a characteristic of the equipment.

 

[castleofargh]

Castle, I've never noticed a frequency response change affecting the perceived sound location. And I've never perceived distance in front of me using headphones as I do with speaker soundstage. Is there a specific response correction that does this? If it is possible for me to hear distance like with speakers using headphones, how would I go about doing that? I've tried binaural recordings and that didn't lead anywhere further away than the tip of my nose and the back side of my head.

Is it different for each listener? If so, would it be caused by the human ears, not the difference between headphones? You couldn't say, "This specific set of headphones sounds like it has distance" and have it apply to everyone equally, right? It sounds to me like an anomaly of someone's hearing, not a characteristic of the equipment.

yes it's different for each listener. in fact very very few people will get more than what you describe(the spots on each ears and the rest in the center of the head sometimes a spot, sometimes a small bubble, sometimes points on the line between the ears). I think I remember that even binaural records are expected to work properly for like 25% of the population(don't quote me on that number), because to work well the listener needs to have his HRTF pretty similar to the dummy doing the recording, and even then some people will simply be more or less disturbed by the lack of head tracking and the sight that there is nothing actually playing in front of them. so you take that number and cut a piece of it to get how many people can hope to get great results from crossfeed(even accepting that it's set to best fit their own head, otherwise the number is going to go even lower), and take another big chunk of that to get how many people will be able to project a mono sound when pretty much all the other cues are missing or saying it's wrong. it's a particular problem for mono as casual panning isn't there, ITDs are zero, so beside looking at the sound source and FR to guess a position, there isn't a all lot to work with. it's such a problem that it is expected for some people to have a "collapsed" center even with full custom simulation doing everything right except the sight of the sound source in front of them.
to get back to my experience, which clearly is not the average experience and I don't even have an average HRTF, when I use my ER4SR IEM, I get the center right on the line between my ears for a huge majority of music like you suggest. with my HD650 when I turn off convolution, reverb and all my toys, I get that same center image up on my head. usually as if the singer is standing on my forehead and the mono stuff from a drummer often feels to me as if a little further away and a little below. even playing entire stereo tracks as a mono output, I end up with some positions and small but varying distances on a regular basis that will somehow change with a different headphone in small or big ways. some IEMs would put a given instrument in a given area on most tracks, it's nonsense, it's weird, but I felt it and on rare occasion it felt fun to listen that way. I can only guess because I have no idea how the brain treats conflicting information, that some FR from have a piece of the spectral information I would have when a sound source hits my ear from a certain position, and maybe the complete EQ fails even that, but part of the EQ does so instruments that are contained within that FR can feel like they fit the cue for that direction? or maybe I just make up stuff in my head for reasons Freud would find to be related to me seeing my mother naked as a kid. who knows what's going on in the brain once we're off road. ^_^


I remember one ATH closed back headphone(but I don't know the model), that I tried at a meeting, placed it backward because I'm that much of a noob, and instantly felt like the sound was coming from behind me. that why I took it off and checked, that impression that stuff were coming from the back. so even as weird anecdotes, I can't help but accept that no matter how wrong the sound cues will be on a given headphone, a listener's brain might still manage to find some piece of some pattern that kinds of look like something it knows that would be wearing a wig, and turn it into a perceived position. to get the right impression of placement requires a great deal of precision and customization, and even then that might just not be enough. but feeling some spacial content(no matter how weird and wrong), doesn't require much for some people. and where I include the role of the headphone is in the way a different headphone with a different response can give a different version of those mostly fake cues. so it's always going to be both about the listener and the headphone(unless the listener just doesn't get any perceived placement outside of 3 blobs in the head no matter what the FR is).

 

[bigshot]

I've heard open and closed with headphones and know what that sounds like. When I listen to the binaural razor, it flickers back and forth from the tip of my nose to the back of my head. But I've never heard anything that sounds anything like a speaker 15 feet in front of me. Are there people who can't tell the difference between physical difference and secondary distance cues in cans? Because to achieve soundstage for me, that is an absolute requirement... it sounds like a stage at a distance in front of me, and the width of the left/right is what determines what the physical distance from me should be to make it sound natural and in scale.

Soundstage and scale are dependent on each other. If there is no distance, there is no scale, because the distance and the width of the speakers dictates the size of the stage. With headphones you have neither the distance in front of you, not the width because it's shooting directly into your ear. No scale at all. Does that make sense? It's not easy to describe in words.

 

[71 dB]

1...When I listen to the binaural razor, it flickers back and forth from the tip of my nose to the back of my head.
2...But I've never heard anything that sounds anything like a speaker 15 feet in front of me.
3…Are there people who can't tell the difference between physical difference and secondary distance cues in cans?
4...Because to achieve soundstage for me, that is an absolute requirement… ...it sounds like a stage at a distance in front of me,
5...and the width of the left/right is what determines what the physical distance from me should be to make it sound natural and in scale.

Soundstage and scale are dependent on each other. If there is no distance, there is no scale, because the distance and the width of the speakers dictates the size of the stage. With headphones you have neither the distance in front of you, not the width because it's shooting directly into your ear. No scale at all. Does that make sense? It's not easy to describe in words.

1...Interesting. I have never experience anything like this (flickering).
2…Neither have I. Never said I have. I have been talking about miniature soundstage. Smaller than 15 feet, but bigger than head, say 3 feet. I think if you use my HRTF and convolve the music with them you get there.
3…my spatial hearing doesn't divide cues into classes, but simply tries to make sense of them. Everything is just cues. So, if I have an instrument in the miniature soundstage 2 feet away from my head it sounds the same as if the instrument where 2 feet away. The difference is if I move my head, the sound "follows" my head. Doesn't bother me, fortunately. I don't know why it doesn't bother, but I am glad it doesn't, because I have one problem less in my life.
4…Be careful about what requirements you have. Are they really necessory or are they just a burden? If you think only speakers give you the sound you want then listen to the speakers. I don't really know what you are doing on a board dedicated to headphones. Maybe you just try to kill headphone listening joy for those who enjoy headphones? Make us feel bad for not having the STUNNING listening room/speakers you have? That is not constructive. You are not increasing happiness in the World. You are destroying it. I do the opposite: I tell you don't need to be rich to be happy. You can buy $200 headphones and build yourself $50 crossfeeder with 6 level adjustiment to enjoy almost any stereophonic recording and have miniature soundstage. Your message is: "Only I can be happy, hahahhaa!". My message is: "Everybody can be happy." Yes, almost everything you write screams that and it's time someone tells it to you. Do you really want to be a jerk like that? Happiness starts from the realization that good enough is enough. We only need to know what is good enough.
5…uhmm what? Not getting what you are trying to say.

 

[castleofargh]

I've heard open and closed with headphones and know what that sounds like. When I listen to the binaural razor, it flickers back and forth from the tip of my nose to the back of my head. But I've never heard anything that sounds anything like a speaker 15 feet in front of me. Are there people who can't tell the difference between physical difference and secondary distance cues in cans? Because to achieve soundstage for me, that is an absolute requirement... it sounds like a stage at a distance in front of me, and the width of the left/right is what determines what the physical distance from me should be to make it sound natural and in scale.

Soundstage and scale are dependent on each other. If there is no distance, there is no scale, because the distance and the width of the speakers dictates the size of the stage. With headphones you have neither the distance in front of you, not the width because it's shooting directly into your ear. No scale at all. Does that make sense? It's not easy to describe in words.

I get what you mean.
and about the barbershop demo, that stuff never ever sounded to me like it's supposed to. I hear the guy going behind and suddenly the sound jumps in front, goes back behind way low then reaches the side and is at ear level or above, it's a complete mess.
with my DIY sort of HRTF compensation(please Realiser A16 come quick!!!) I get sounds up to about 1.5meter away(about where my monitors are(speakers and PC^_^), so I've been enjoying the experience quite a lot. but if I move my head, it takes me a little moment not moving to reclaim some distance. it's a fragile exercise in self trickery. I'm optimistic about head tracking(with the right HRTF correction!!!!!!) and expect it to pretty much solve headphones for me. head tracking with universal HRTF stuff were always a failure for me so far, so I don't just need the concept of movement, I do need need one that agrees with my hearing experience.

 

[71 dB]

The room imparts an envelope on sound that is instantly recognizable as sounding real... because it is a real envelope of reflections and directionality imparted by the room. The room is a huge part of the sound in speaker systems. Headphones don't have that. Crossfeed is a good way to process the signal to take the curse off of headphone listening, but it isn't the same as the complex acoustics of a real live room, nor is it intended to be that.

Headphones do not have soundstage because there is no physical space involved.
Crossfeed isn't the same as the effect of the room on sound with speaker systems.

Despite of real spatial cues your hearing gets fooled. You "should" hear sound coming from your speakers only and nowhere else. The real spatial cues created by your room should indicate that, but that's not what you hear. You tell me sometimes you hear dragons flying around your room. But you don't have sound sources flying around your room, do you? Something fools your hearing. It's the spatial cues of the recording doing that and the same fooling happens with headphones, only diffently because room acoustics isn't there. Thanks to this fooling, headphones can give miniature soundstage.

Totally agree with the bold one. I never said crossfeed does that. My message: IF you listen to headphones, please use crossfeed to fix the problem of excessive spatiality.

 

[jaakkopasanen]

I think it's an odd definition of term soundstage to require a physical room for creating it. In the end all we have is our perception of the world and if the perception is that the "room" exists then what difference does it make whether it was created by headphones or speakers in a room. I've personally never experienced sound in front of me using headphones without any DSP so I would say that I have never experienced, or perceived, a soundstage with headphones without DSP.

Now things get more interesting when you're using headphones with DSP which adds, not only cross-talk, but also the HRTF and room reflections and reverb. If things are personalized for you well enough it gets damn hard to tell between listening to headphones and the actual speakers. I don't see how one could claim that at this point the headphones don't have soundstage. Or maybe it's the DSP that has the soundstage and not the headphones?

Every time the discussion gets here the Smyth Realizer is brought up and there will be people being very disappointed that they can't afford one. I certainly can't. So I made a tool to do the HRIR measurement myself. Cost of the measurement gear is about $200 and because the gear is not needed after the measurements have been done it can be sold so in the end the costs are quite minimal. Those who got interested can check out the tool here: https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer

 

[bigshot]

1...Interesting. I have never experience anything like this (flickering).

It was impossible for me to control whether the razor was right in front of me, or right behind me. I think binaural requires such control over the head shape, there really is no "one size fits all" solution. Most of the binaural music I heard just had slathered on room acoustics like they had recorded it in a bathroom. It didn't sound any more real, just "thick".

Be careful about what requirements you have. Are they really necessory or are they just a burden?

My listening room doubles as a screening room. When I play a blu-ray of an opera on the projection screen and the stage fills the whole screen, I need the soundstage to exactly match it in scale. If it's a good mix (which it usually is) the voices are anchored to specific parts of the screen matching what I see. Years ago, I had a 21 inch CRT TV with a normal stereo system setup. The sound always sounded bigger than the image. I've got them in the same scale now and it makes it easier to fall into the presentation and accept it as something occurring right in front of me. (That is a hard thing to describe, but when you see and hear it, you know it.)

Imagine you are sitting 15 rows back in the center of a real live concert hall and you close your eyes... The sound is coming from a distance in front of you, and when you point to the extreme left and right of the aural spread it's about 60 degrees. The size and scale of the presentation of the orchestra in front of you is natural, not too small or too big... that's the proportions I'm trying to achieve. My projection screen matches the proportions of the scale and width of a concert hall stage in front of me. The physical distance and scale are what makes it sound real. If it was smaller and inside my head, the sound would be separate and disconnected from the way concert halls sound. The soundstage is the proscenium at the front of the stage. It's in front of you at a distance and the secondary depth cues indicate the depth behind the proscenium. Movie theaters with good sound systems always do that. Is that a clearer explanation?

with my DIY sort of HRTF compensation(please Realiser A16 come quick!!!) I get sounds up to about 1.5meter away(about where my monitors are(speakers and PC^_^), so I've been enjoying the experience quite a lot. but if I move my head, it takes me a little moment not moving to reclaim some distance.

That was how binaural felt to me. If I concentrated on it, I could sort of control it, but it was uncomfortable and took a little concentration. Not exactly the way I would prefer to listen to music. I hope the Smyth gizmo locks it in for you. In theory you should be able to scale the presentation however you'd like. I've found that a distance of at least 15 feet from the mains and a 60 degree soundstage width is very close to the way live acoustic music feels. (if it's recorded with a natural soundstage).

You tell me sometimes you hear dragons flying around your room. But you don't have sound sources flying around your room, do you?

I have a surround system, so sound sources get handed off from channel to channel just like an object moving from left to right on the mains do. The directionality of the sound is all around me.

Now things get more interesting when you're using headphones with DSP which adds, not only cross-talk, but also the HRTF and room reflections and reverb. If things are personalized for you well enough it gets damn hard to tell between listening to headphones and the actual speakers.

Yes and the Smyth Realiser adds real time head tracking which would greatly improve the perception of front and back and distance. I'm sure the cost will come down to a reasonable level. I have an Oculus Quest that has compact and extremely accurate head tracking and it cost $500. DSPs certainly are the future of realistic sounding audio. As this stuff gets more plug and play, more people will understand the importance of the effect of space on sound.

 

[71 dB]

I have a surround system, so sound sources get handed off from channel to channel just like an object moving from left to right on the mains do. The directionality of the sound is all around me.

I know you have a surround system, but what does it help with stereophonic recordings such as the Culshaw-recordings you praise so much?

Anyway, my point is WHY do you hear sounds coming from places where you don't have speakers, between/behind the speakers? Shouldn't you hear sound from ONLY speakers? That's the physical truth, isn't it such as with headphones sound coming only at your ear is the physical truth. My point is the physical truth doesn't matter. What our hearing does with the spatial cues it gets is what matters.

 

[bigshot]

I know you have a surround system, but what does it help with stereophonic recordings such as the Culshaw-recordings you praise so much?

My Yamaha AVR has a DSP called Stereo to 7.1 that does a fantastic job of enlarging the front soundstage while maintaining the location accuracy. Then it fills in the rears to keep the back "live". I use it almost all the time with stereo music.

Re: Sound directionality that isn't placed right on a speaker. When two speakers mesh, you get a phantom center. That is why stereo has a clear left to right soundstage. In headphones, the phantom center is right between your ears. The room also adds reflections off the walls and ceiling that all have their own directionality too.

Actual distance creates a more sophisticated sense of distance than headphones alone ever could. That's pretty obvious.

 

[71 dB]

Re: Sound directionality that isn't placed right on a speaker. When two speakers mesh, you get a phantom center. That is why stereo has a clear left to right soundstage. In headphones, the phantom center is right between your ears. The room also adds reflections off the walls and ceiling that all have their own directionality too. Actual distance creates a more sophisticated sense of distance than headphones alone ever could. That's pretty obvious.

You know I agree about the size of soundstage, that's why I talk about miniature soundstage. Speakers are better at soundstage. That doesn't mean one can't enjoy headphones. I do enjoy headphones. If I didn't, I don't think I would have ever registered on this discussion board. I came here to tell about my knowledge of crossfeed, but I learned fast that my knowledge has very little value to anyone. Now I am confused about what should I be doing here? So much time wasted...

Why does phantom center happen? It's because spatial hearing gets fooled. Instead of hearing 2 sound sources on the left and right you hear one in the center which doesn't correspond the physical reality (the soundwaves in you room from a real phantom sourse would be different). We can pan using amplitude, delay or both (best option) and all of that is fooling spatial hearing. Headphone miniature soundstage is simply about the same fooling of spatial hearing.

 

[bigshot]

I've never said that people can't enjoy listening to music on headphones. I just say that if you are interested in soundstage, they aren't the right tool for the job. You need speakers to do soundstage. Speakers do a lousy job at isolation. You can shut the door and turn down the volume, but headphones are what you really need if isolation is a priority. You choose what your priority is and you live with it. There's no point arguing that speakers are good at isolation, because they clearly aren't. And headphones aren't how you create soundstage.

Last night I was listening to the new multichannel Tangerine Dream set. The recording had synth voices that were placed in different points in the room. The ones that were the clearest involved the front soundstage and the rear corners. I closed my eyes and could discern distance very accurately. There were a couple of sound objects placed in the middle of the room. One was using the phantom center between the center channel and rear right. The other was using the phantom center between rear left and front right. There was a much vaguer sense of placement with those sound objects. If my priority was creating a tight sound location field in the middle of the room, I would really need an Atmos setup. My 5.1 is OK if the sound is moving diagonally across the room quickly, but for sounds that are fixed in place in the center of the room, it sucks at it. With headphones you can get the secondary distance cues that are baked into the mix and get an idea of what the soundstage might sound like. But it isn't the same as true distance added to real distance. Real distance cues are much more sophisticated and realistic than secondary ones. That's why Atmos is better to image sounds in the middle of the room than using phantom centers to do that.

 

[SilverEars]

I get what you mean.
and about the barbershop demo, that stuff never ever sounded to me like it's supposed to. I hear the guy going behind and suddenly the sound jumps in front, goes back behind way low then reaches the side and is at ear level or above, it's a complete mess.
with my DIY sort of HRTF compensation(please Realiser A16 come quick!!!) I get sounds up to about 1.5meter away(about where my monitors are(speakers and PC^_^), so I've been enjoying the experience quite a lot. but if I move my head, it takes me a little moment not moving to reclaim some distance. it's a fragile exercise in self trickery. I'm optimistic about head tracking(with the right HRTF correction!!!!!!) and expect it to pretty much solve headphones for me. head tracking with universal HRTF stuff were always a failure for me so far, so I don't just need the concept of movement, I do need need one that agrees with my hearing experience.

Some details on this? Is it a rig or software? I've hear dof Darin Fong, out of your head experience. https://fongaudio.com/

I enjoy music on headphones, it has it's spot in Hifi due to aspects that are unique from speakers. Perhaps I haven't explored speakers enough, but headphones are so much more convenient.

Eventhough headphones are not really two point sources distance away, there is imaging variations to headphones, and some really are more interesting than others when it comes to how sound gives off a more dimentionality to them, and in terms of details retrieval. I think detail retrieval is the big strength of headphones. When there is some pre-processing to effect the drivers for EQ or imaging, I believe that the real driver performance is lost (or in a way masked by pre-processing, or not transparent to original content).

If Realizer can achieve realistic sound stage, it's huge. I'd rather have a simple device that doesn't require room treatment and number of speakers to setup. Simplifies things immensely. Biggest draw for 360 spatial sound for me is for cinema, and no need to setup large number of speakers everywhere is a big plus, especially if you can simulate high number of point sources in a dome like atmosphere.

Realistically though, if real sound stage is important, just go with speakers.

 

[castleofargh]

Some details on this? Is it a rig or software? I've hear dof Darin Fong, out of your head experience. https://fongaudio.com/

I enjoy music on headphones, it has it's spot in Hifi due to aspects that are unique from speakers. Perhaps I haven't explored speakers enough, but headphones are so much more convenient.

Eventhough headphones are not really two point sources distance away, there is imaging variations to headphones, and some really are more interesting than others when it comes to how sound gives off a more dimentionality to them, and in terms of details retrieval. I think detail retrieval is the big strength of headphones. When there is some pre-processing to effect the drivers for EQ or imaging, I believe that the real aspect of the driver performance is lost.

the OOYH solution is objectively solid as it relies on in-room measurements of some fairly fancy rooms, and works on multichannel audio. the 2 main limitations with this are the lack of head tracking, and the fact that the sort of HRTF cues baked in the impulses aren't our very own HRTF. meaning that for some people it works pretty well, and for others not so much(for me it didn't work well).
what @jaakkopasanen proposes is for you to use little binaural microphones you stick in your ears, and to make you're own impulses for each real speaker that will later become a virtual speakers in your headphone. so this time the customization is great, but the room you get to record is most likely your room instead of some famous opera house or professional recording studio with great soundstage and high quality, well calibrated speakers. win some, lose some.

my temporary solution that has been "temporary" since the Realiser A16 was announced(so a few years now), was as follow: as I didn't have in ear microphones, I looked up HRTF impulses all over the web and tried them one by one like a crazy person to find something that worked well for me at about 30° angle on each side(speaker placement). I tested those while on a subjectively EQed headphone so the FR would be very close to my speaker's perceived FR when placed at 30°. long story short, after a lot of messing around, I've got something that's barely passable but still much better for me than basic crossfeed and very much better(mostly less fatiguing, the rest is a matter of taste) for me than headphone with no DSP at all. how it works is just a simple so called "true stereo" convolution, so 4 impulses taking stereo music and simulating left channel/speaker to left and right ear, and right speaker to left and right ear. the all thing is then mixed down back to stereo.
if I had to do it all over again, I'd get in ear microphones and surf on @jaakkopasanen's efforts and generous sharing.

 

[gregorio]

[1] You can buy $200 headphones and build yourself $50 crossfeeder with 6 level adjustiment to enjoy almost any stereophonic recording and have miniature soundstage.
[1a] Your message is: "Only I can be happy, hahahhaa!". My message is: "Everybody can be happy."
[1b] Yes, almost everything you write screams that and it's time someone tells it to you.
[1c] Do you really want to be a jerk like that?
[1d] My message: IF you listen to headphones, please use crossfeed to fix the problem of excessive spatiality.
[1e] I came here to tell about my knowledge of crossfeed, but I learned fast that my knowledge has very little value to anyone.

1. No you can't!
1a. Your message is false and repeating it endlessly does not make it true.
1b. And not just "someone" but several "someones" have told you but still you just keep repeating the same nonsense!
1c. Right back at you. Do YOU really want to keep being a jerk like that? ....
1d. You answer this question repeatedly because "excessive spatiality" is a term you've invented and crossfeed does NOT fix it anyway!!! How many times?
1e. Round and round in circles we go, numerous times over a period of a couple of years or so! Simple question: If you "learned fast that your knowledge has very little value to anyone", why do you keep repeating it even years later?

ALL of the above is false/nonsense, even point 1e! For the umpteenth time: Virtually all commercial music recordings have conflicting "spatial cues" (as you call them), that cannot ever exist in reality from the point of view of a listener/audience member. When listening with headphones our hearing/perception tries to make sense of these conflicting "cues" but as we all have different headphones, different hearing and different perception, the results are variable from person to person. For YOUR hearing/perception YOUR application of crossfeed is obviously preferable to YOU but, that doesn't mean that it would be to others and it would therefore NOT make "everyone happy". For this reason, your 1e statement is also false; your knowledge may have practical value to those with similar hearing/perception and preferences to you. In other words, it is false that your personal use of crossfeed can make everyone happy and it is also false that it "has very little value to anyone"! However, some of the factual assertions you've invented to explain your personal perception/preferences contradict the actual facts and therefore really are of no value to anyone.

We are therefore going to go round in circles forever: You falsely asserting your application of crossfeed "fixes the problems of spatial cues" and is applicable for everyone and me/us refuting those false assertions/claims! What's strange is that at some level you seem to have some understanding of the actual facts but somehow fail to factor that into your "knowledge", for example:

Anyway, my point is WHY do you hear sounds coming from places where you don't have speakers, between/behind the speakers? Shouldn't you hear sound from ONLY speakers? That's the physical truth, isn't it such as with headphones sound coming only at your ear is the physical truth. My point is the physical truth doesn't matter. What our hearing does with the spatial cues it gets is what matters.

Your point that "the physical truth doesn't matter" is largely true but it completely CONTRADICTS "your message", which is to use crossfeed to alter the "physical truth"?! Likewise, what our hearing does with the spatial cues ["the physical truth"] is NOT "what matters", it's part of "what matters" but what really matters is how our perception interprets that "physical truth" and our perception HAS to interpret it, because it does not and cannot exist in reality!! This brings us back yet again to individual perception and preferences, not some objective fact applicable to everyone.

[1] We can pan using amplitude, delay or both (best option) and all of that is fooling spatial hearing.
[2] Headphone miniature soundstage is simply about the same fooling of spatial hearing.
[3] This is really crazy! I thought it was clear for everybody that headphones can quite easily give impression of sound bigger then your head.

1. Firstly: No, that is NOT the best option, in fact it would typically be the worst option! Secondly, yes, all of that can fool spatial hearing but what the result is, what it fools us into perceiving, varies depending on a large number of factors.

2. No it's not, it's a different "fooling of spatial hearing"! When listening with headphones there are various missing factors, plus many of the other factors involved are different, so it's not the same at all and therefore it may or may not be perceived as a miniature soundstage!

3. EXACTLY!!! You "thought it was clear for everybody ...", which is an assumption that YOU'VE invented based on YOUR perception of a bunch of highly conflicting "spatial cues" (which pretty much every commercial music recording contains). So yes, "this is really crazy"! It's REALLY CRAZY that you so doggedly stick to your false assumption, make-up a false objective "facts" to explain it and state that the only people outside of your "everybody" must be jerks, idiots or whatever!

[1] For example:
[1a] If the sound has very little reverberations it is a sign of a close sound.
[1b] If it has a lot of reflections etc. it is a sign of distant sound.
[1c] If is has rolled of treble it is a sign of distant sound etc.
[2] If you have spatial cues of distant sound in the sound you fed with headphones, spatial hearing is FOOLED the sound is distant.

1. Another classic example of you just making up false facts to justify/explain your personal perception as objective fact!!
1a. No it's not! If we record something from a distance in say an open field, it will have "very little reverberations" (because there are no reflective surfaces) but it will still sound distant!
1b. No it's not! You'll get a massively more reflections say 6ft away from the sound source in a bathroom than you would 30ft away from the sound source in a large but less reflective room (or in a field).
1c. No it's not! A rolled-off treble can be a sign of all sorts or things, for example a quite closely mic'ed sound source with something absorptive between the mic and sound source (say another musician or instrument) and that's just one example.

Spatial hearing is complex, it involves a relative comparison of a COMBINATION of all sorts of factors, colouration and volume of the direct sound PLUS the timing, balance, number, duration, crossfeed, volume and various other parameters of both the initial reflections and subsequent reverb. Furthermore, when an instrument/voice is closely mic'ed (which is almost always the case!) these factors are virtually always altered in mixing/production; the colouration (EQ) will be changed, artificial reverb and/or other effects added (such as compression) and, different EQ, reverbs and other effects will be applied to each of the different elements/instruments in the mix (in the case of rock/pop and all other non-acoustic genres).

2. Given that the spatial cues in virtually all commercial music releases are all over the place to start with (contain conflicting "spatial cues") and are not being affected by another global layer of initial reflections/reverb (from the listening room)., then "spatial hearing" (perception) may or may not be "FOOLED" when using HPs, depending on the individual's perception. Furthermore, and completely contrary to your previous assertions, one isn't a "jerk" or idiot if one's perception is not as easily "fooled" as yours apparently is. If anything, the opposite is true, I tend not to be so easily "fooled" and hear more of what's really going on in the recording. Although this could be attributed to my experience/knowledge of music production, I know plenty of other people whose perception is also not "fooled" but who don't have any music or recording/mixing training.

How many times are we going to have to go through this before you stop the "really crazy"?

G