Yes i should test that , but i'm more and more asking myself if the problem is ..me. I tried Out of the Head by fongaudio, and their demo, i only heard a dummy sound, with reverb, all IN my head, very very bad localisation... a lightyear from my 5.1 system.
No, in fact, whatever i tried i had very bad difficulties with front projection : at better i succeed to hear the sound coming just a little above my head, but never one or two meters from like my actual speakers are.
And i'm wondering if i would come to buy a smyth realiser (an used A8) if i could have the same problem
Prof Choueiri mentioned that for some people, the center image simulation just doesn’t seem to work. Probably something to do with the visual cortex dominating their subjective experience even more than is usual for humans. So when your eyes and ears disagree because you're in a different room or you're looking at a wall instead of a band playing, your brain decides to trust what it sees but somehow rejects the audio cues even more than is "normal". Things get better on the sides because you're eyes are in front, and also maybe because unlike the center image, side stuff also have interaural cues(variations in timing and frequency response between the 2 ears that define at least the direction in a much clearer way than mono stuff where only the general FR has a little impact on vertical elevation and that's about it for localization cues.
At least that's my hypothetical explanation. I have no evidence of anything ^_^.
A few options to try:
Listen for a while in the dark, nothing visual must disturb you. Most people end up with an impressive space from audio after a few minutes. While doing this, try to not move your head at all(if you don’t have a chair high enough to maintain your head, maybe lie down on a bed). After a while, can you get frontal audio at some distance? If not, I'm not optimistic that there is a virtual solution for you.
If things go well, find out if moving your head kills the distance while in the dark. You need to be in real darkness so you eyes can't lock onto something to get spatial cues.
Last thing to test is to listen to the same convoluted audio while sitting where you’d usually sit to use your speakers. And then do the same somewhere else. That is to check how important the room and seeing the speakers will affect you. there's a paper I posted somewhere suggesting that at least at a statistical level it does make a difference to be in the original conditions, but again, how much it does for you is what counts. If the difference is marginal, you don't have to bother with that. If it's not, then you'd better record from where you'll be sitting(I imagine in front of your computer at a desk).
To me, head movements ruin everything and I really need head tracking. I also find a great benefit to listening to PRIRs I made with the monitors on my desk(at about 1m from me). Some will be amazed to have the recordings of a big room with fancy speakers, but I tried and ended up going back to my actual room(even thought it's an acoustic nightmare!!!!!). Somehow I get the same reverb, I can anchor the sound source to the speaker monitors I see in front of me(that also makes a huge difference for me). It just feels reals and I tend to keep the center image between those 2 speakers, maybe because I hear it there? Maybe because I'm expecting the center image to be between speakers so my brains wants it there? I know how I feel and what works for me, but I don't have anything beyond guesses when it comes to why.
On the A16's thread, at least 3 people have said that they didn't use the head tracking(didn't like it or didn't see the benefit). I cannot understand, but I also can't ignore that I exist and they exist. So which one are you? Who knows? hopefully my weird experimental suggestions can let you get some ideas even without actually testing head tracking+PRIRs(headtracking modeled on some dummy head were a disappointment for me, and then again, some other people loved them... subjectivity is such a bother
).
About difficulties in making measurements, I would argue that it’s easier to fail with the A16 because you have to record all speakers at several look angles for the head tracking. I can't count how many times I ended up having the mic move in one ear while I turned to a different position, or while I tried to read something on the A16. Having a super clever part time slave to do the all thing for you while you focus only on being there and turning when asked to, that makes all the difference IMO.
About the final frequency response, the uncertainties are the same as with impulcifer . You probably could benefit from some EQ(on top of the measurements) with one of the methods discussed in this thread somewhere, that are mainly based on equal loudness contour and some luck. For your center image problem, the FR as I said can impact elevation. That in turn may or may not help trick your brain about setting a distance for the virtual center. That's really a case by case thing and it's near impossible to know when you get it right beside feeling for yourself that the center is at eye level(or whatever level it's supposed to be based on where the speakers were).
As for the A8, it seems to require
solid knowledge of the manual. Most people seem to give up on making prirs on the A16 because they find it overwhelming(the Smyth guys said so). I sure was like that for the first 2 weeks, but then I finally pulled my fingers out of my butt and started struggling toward a result(the first step is the hardest, like always). Anyway, people who owned both, say that the A16 is much easier
. Then again, you're here. Meaning that along all the 7 other people on this thread, you have the willpower to put in the work and RTFM if it helps get away from the failed stereo that is normal headphone use. You being part of that elite group of binaural mic warriors(too much?^_^), makes me hopeful that you'd deal with whatever Realiser complexity.
Where are you in France? You should definitely try to find a Realiser owner near you who would agree to demo it. There is really no substitute to trying it yourself. Il y a toujours Paris et le revendeur Francais(Gilles Gerin) qui propose une demo avec calibration, si jamais. C'est sur RDV, il faut lui demander sur av-in.com .
edit: OMG I wrote a book! Sorry about that.
It's sort of like sitting in the 1st row at the concert. But 4 ft could be like resting your chin on the front of the stage. Not a bad spot.
