Recording Impulse Responses for Speaker Virtualization

[morgin]

Is there a way to adjust side speakers to be more forward. With my new measurements the side speakers sound too far back, the rears and front sound in perfect position. I’ve tried the adjust speaker position in hesuvi but they don’t seem to move.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Is there a way to adjust side speakers to be more forward. With my new measurements the side speakers sound too far back, the rears and front sound in perfect position. I’ve tried the adjust speaker position in hesuvi but they don’t seem to move.

Hmm? Did you do measurements for side speakers by having speakers to your side (in which case the obvious answer is to re-measure with the speakers in a new better position), or are you trying some virtualization on top of virtualization?

 

[MrHaelscheir]

Is there a way to adjust side speakers to be more forward. With my new measurements the side speakers sound too far back, the rears and front sound in perfect position. I’ve tried the adjust speaker position in hesuvi but they don’t seem to move.

If you measured speakers from one position and the binaural reproduction images them from a different position, something is wrong with either the measurements or the binaural rendering/mixing. You can only move the virtual speakers forward if you have corresponding measurements for those HRTFs. For example, since I used https://www.earfish.eu/ to capture my whole HRTF, I have enough data points to do a "binaural pan" of the virtual speakers to almost any direction. If you for example only have side and front-center measurements, then you would need to do a special volume pan to move the left and right virtual channels closer along the line between the side speakers and the front-center speaker.

 

[ThanatosVI]

In the Smyth Realiser A16 there are "generic presets" one can use for a rough glimpse of what is possible.

Is there Something similar for Impulcifer?

 

[sander99]

In the Smyth Realiser A16 there are "generic presets" one can use for a rough glimpse of what is possible.

Is there Something similar for Impulcifer?

Impucifer itself doesn't do speaker virtualisation, it is just a tool to create "presets" based on personal measurements. Those presets can be used for example by HeSuVi. If you install HeSuVi you will get a bunch of generic presets with it. However, it is very well possible that none of these presets give a very realistic out-of-head experience to you. [Edit: actually that is an understatement, it is very well possible they don't sound out-of-head at all, and totally bad.] (They didn't work at all for me.) But that says nothing about the potential, how it can sound with a good personal measurement. I own a Realiser A16 and I have used Impulcifer to create a HeSuVi preset (by running the Impulcifer Sweeps through the Realiser, using my personally measured PRIR and HPEQ), thus creating a HeSuVi HRIR "copy" of my Realiser PRIR (with HPEQ "baked in"). I didn't do very intensive listening tests, but on the surface HeSuVi with this preset sounds identical to using the Realiser (with switched off headtracking). And that does give me a very good out-of-head experience.
(The only reason why I didn't do a direct speaker and headphone measurement with Impulcifer is lazyness: I have my Realiser and PRIR and HPEQ, and making this "copy" this way is less work. I have no reason to think a direct measurement would give a dramatically different result.)

 

[ThanatosVI]

Impucifer itself doesn't do speaker virtualisation, it is just a tool to create "presets" based on personal measurements. Those presets can be used for example by HeSuVi. If you install HeSuVi you will get a bunch of generic presets with it. However, it is very well possible that none of these presets give a very realistic out-of-head experience to you. [Edit: actually that is an understatement, it is very well possible they don't sound out-of-head at all, and totally bad.] (They didn't work at all for me.) But that says nothing about the potential, how it can sound with a good personal measurement. I own a Realiser A16 and I have used Impulcifer to create a HeSuVi preset (by running the Impulcifer Sweeps through the Realiser, using my personally measured PRIR and HPEQ), thus creating a HeSuVi HRIR "copy" of my Realiser PRIR (with HPEQ "baked in"). I didn't do very intensive listening tests, but on the surface HeSuVi with this preset sounds identical to using the Realiser (with switched off headtracking). And that does give me a very good out-of-head experience.
(The only reason why I didn't do a direct speaker and headphone measurement with Impulcifer is lazyness: I have my Realiser and PRIR and HPEQ, and making this "copy" this way is less work. I have no reason to think a direct measurement would give a dramatically different result.)

OK that Sounds interesting.
Let me Check wether I understood correctly.
1. You have a Realiser A16 With PRIR and HPEQ. So you measured your own Headphones on your own Head and use one of the "Room" settings from the Realiser A16
2. You then used the Impulcifer sweeps through the Realiser A16 With These settings instead of Impulcifer sweeps through actual speakers.
3. The result is pretty much the same, but doesn't require you to have actual speakers at Home .

Did I get that correctly?

 

[OlivierBriard]

Using the Zoom H1n sounds like a smart move cleaner input should help. Try averaging a few sweeps instead of filtering to keep phase intact. You’re really close!

 

[sander99]

OK that Sounds interesting.
Let me Check wether I understood correctly.
1. You have a Realiser A16 With PRIR and HPEQ. So you measured your own Headphones on your own Head and use one of the "Room" settings from the Realiser A16
2. You then used the Impulcifer sweeps through the Realiser A16 With These settings instead of Impulcifer sweeps through actual speakers.
3. The result is pretty much the same, but doesn't require you to have actual speakers at Home .

Did I get that correctly?

To be hopefully completely clear:
1. With the A16 I measured my personal HPEQ with the headphones on my head, with the in-ear-mics in my ears.
2. With the A16 I measured my personal PRIR, so I measured real speakers in a room, with the in-ear-mics in my ears.
3, Then - much later - I indeed used the Impulcifer sweeps through the A16 with my personal PRIR and HPEQ active, instead of through real speakers in a room.
I send the measurements signals from the pc digitally to the A16 via HDMI (PCM 7.1). and retrieved the signal intended for the headphones digitally via optical spdif out user A. (I bought a cheap usb audio interface with optical spdif input). So this whole "copying" process is done purely digital without DA or AD conversions.

So I did not use a generic PRIR of the A16, those generally also do not work for me. Although using the A16 with headtracking you can get out-of-head sound even with less "personal fitting" PRIRs if you move your head a lot (the interaural time differences correctly adapting to you head movements give strong clues to the brain, at least for me). But Impulcifer and HeSuVi don't support headtracking, so there a good personal measurement is even more important.

 

[musicreo]

In the Smyth Realiser A16 there are "generic presets" one can use for a rough glimpse of what is possible.

Is there Something similar for Impulcifer?

I think that one of the "generic presets" is this room:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/sbsbrir

The data is free an can also be used with EQ-APO (HeSuVi).