[GeorgeA]

@dsperber, thanks for the review on sonic holography. Nowadays, it’s pretty much like classic cars.

 

[esimms86]

I tend to go back and forth regarding the necessity of using head tracking when listening to media. I have finally come to my own subjective conclusion that:
(1) it is not necessary when I am enjoying video content on my laptop; in fact, I prefer foregoing head tracking in this specific situation
(2) it is very helpful for enjoyment of music listening but it is not essential

I sometimes wonder what the effect would be of putting 3 cinder blocks in front of me at the same distances and angles at which my favorite in person PRIR was captured.

I do not watch video content on a large flat screen television with the A16 engaged so that probably makes me an outlier.

Obviously, there is no right or wrong in this situation, but I am curious to hear from others in regard to their usage(or not) of head tracking when enjoying their A16 units.

 

[GeorgeA]

.........................

I sometimes wonder what the effect would be of putting 3 cinder blocks in front of me at the same distances and angles at which my favorite in person PRIR was captured.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

You might glue high resolution photos of some 500,000 USD speakers on those cinder blocks to complement the illusion given by Realiser A16.

On the more serious side, I always wear the head tracking both for watching a movie and listening to music.

 

[JonFo]

Carver C-4000 preamp with built-in sonic hologram generator functionality

Ah, fond memories of that one, I loved my C-4000; used one for many years in the 80's and early 90's.
That stuff, plus the synthesized rear channels was quite effective for the day.

What really triggered this post is that today I listened to Jean-Michel Jarre's new Welcome To The Other Side release. It is, by far, the album that best takes advantage of the C-9's capabilities, of all the albums I've listened to so far. On the tracks Oxygene 2 and Oxygene 4 in particular, I had to check more than once to make sure I was listening to a stereo system, and not the full 7.1 system in that room

Yep, those albums blew me away when played on the C-4000.

That holography is basically similar to what producers now achieve with techniques described in this SoS article: Classic Stereo-widening

Big dipole electrostats (MartinLogan), in live-end rooms, achieve a static version of that effect.

The Dolby Surround upmixer in any Atmos-certified device is the technical and spiritual descendant of technologies like these, but specifically, the Meridian TriFiled 2ch -> multichannel upmixer in the Meridian processor lineup of the 90's and 2000's. Love to use Trifield 5.1 on my Meridian 568 preamp.

Whether on speakers or via the A16, I pretty much listen to 2Ch tracks with DSU enabled.

 

[Jonesing4A16]

Can anyone please comment on the IEM Plug-in Suite (https://plugins.iem.at/, a free and Open-Source audio plugin suite including Ambisonic plug-ins up to 7th order created by staff and students of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics) as possibly a staring point for a poor man's version of the Theoretical Research Bacch3D4Mac? Some of us may already own a Mac with a high-quality audio interface but do not know how-to tinker with mixing and rendering 3D binaural audio. Finding affordable high-fidelity in-ear binaural microphones may also be a challenge. Thanks in advance for your consideration.

 

[Litlgi74]

On the more serious side, I always wear the head tracking both for watching a movie and listening to music.

Optical or magnetic tracking?

 

[Litlgi74]

Whether on speakers or via the A16, I pretty much listen to 2Ch tracks with DSU enabled.

You don't have Auro-3D yet?

 

[castleofargh]

I stated this earlier but can’t help but repeat it:

Regarding BACCH and the Realiser - This dispute! What nonsense and another testament that all these guys are dealing with overpriced snake oil. Binaural room impulse responses have been around much longer than any of their products. In fact, one of the first publications on the subject dates back to the 70s (Göttingen group), Lehnert & Blauert (1992) with the current method dating to 1993 (headed by Angelo Farina)

See: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...pulse-responses.pdf?origin=publication_detail

The same applies to spherical to channel-based transformations. Ambisonics, anyone? What do you guys think the bed is made of in Dolby Atmos? The objects are limited to only 64 focused objects. The bed (I.e. at least 70 percent of the mix) is mostly spherical anyway.

There is nothing … I repeat … NOTHING original about BACCH or the Realiser. The latter is just a really cool all-in-one package that is well calibrated. Not sure what BACCH is other than overpriced (cannot comment on their crossfeed cancellation product; overpriced applies to either product). I’m sure the development of either solution is commendable.

When I mention this thread or any of these discussions to my colleagues at the acoustics department, we all just laugh our asses off. Sorry, but it’s really that pathetic.

/stop rant

This was also my impression. although the 3D recording or reproduction on speakers are different from speaker simulations, the papers I remember on those various topics start around the 70s.

Dolby did a ’Apple’ a few times IMO by limiting the options of a known tech and pushing for that limited version as a patented standard(ethically lame but admittedly convenient for professionals).

BACCH is focused on stereo speakers and the crosstalk reduction thingy. It is their main product. I have a hard time seeing what that has to do with Smyth. It is cool and clever but also never interested me. All my music was made by people using ”normal” speakers and expecting listeners to do the same.
They do have an extra tool for headphone playback, but isn’t it still about reproducing the crosstalkless speaker sound?

In any case, if the argument was about who between Smyth and Choueiri invented recording impulses and using convolution, the answer is obviously neither of them.

As for pricing... on one hand they’re both small players buying in small quantities, not selling a all lot, so the work time and costs per unit go way up and the business model must include huge margins to just hopefully someday be viable.
On the other hand, a pair of binaural mics and an infrared webcam plugged into our own computer with the right software, that would allow similar results for most users and shouldn’t cost much(unless they give you 2k$ mics?).

 

[sander99]

Can anyone please comment on the IEM Plug-in Suite (https://plugins.iem.at/, a free and Open-Source audio plugin suite including Ambisonic plug-ins up to 7th order created by staff and students of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics) as possibly a staring point for a poor man's version of the Theoretical Research Bacch3D4Mac? Some of us may already own a Mac with a high-quality audio interface but do not know how-to tinker with mixing and rendering 3D binaural audio. Finding affordable high-fidelity in-ear binaural microphones may also be a challenge. Thanks in advance for your consideration.

On this page some in-ear-mics (at different price levels) and audio interfaces are mentioned:
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer/wiki/Measurements

In case you are interested, above page is related to Impulcifer, "a poor-mans version of a Realiser" (pc based, max 7.1 channels, no headtracking):
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/recording-impulse-responses-for-speaker-virtualization.890719/
https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer

I don't know that IEM Plug-in Suite but it looks interesting at first glimpse, the RoomEncoder fascinates me ("render over 200 wall reflections", I wish it can somehow be used in combination with video-derived-hrtf like aural-ID or Mesh2HRTF to add a virtual room as a possible alternative for an in-ear PRIR/HRIR measurement).

[Edit: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/mesh2hrtf.962708/]

 

[arnaud]

In any case, if the argument was about who between Smyth and Choueiri invented recording impulses and using convolution, the answer is obviously neither of them.

this!

This is why I can’t stand the bacch marketing. To me, it feels like a commercially failed version of Amar G. Bose and the fellow who mentioned acoustic lab engineers laughing off isn’t probly too far from the truth…

Suffice to say, cross-talk cancellation of stereo signal is not addressing quite the same needs as multi-channel binaural processing so, besides the fact both tech rely on convolution, I also don’t see the common point if discussion.

arnaud

 

[phoenixdogfan]

You might glue high resolution photos of some 500,000 USD speakers on those cinder blocks to complement the illusion given by Realiser A16.

On the more serious side, I always wear the head tracking both for watching a movie and listening to music.

I do too. I run the H-T cable from the front of the A16 under a rug (so I never trip over it) and clip it to my headphone cable and then into the headtracker. It doesn't get in the way at all when I do this. Again, it's another of my work arounds. Like having a rug with a clock face to mark out 30 degree angles for doing PRIRs using two speakers, or having the Hue camera in front of my Realizer screen so I can put it images on my 55 in TV and use my remote from acroos the room in the comfort of my listening chair.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Can anyone please comment on the IEM Plug-in Suite (https://plugins.iem.at/, a free and Open-Source audio plugin suite including Ambisonic plug-ins up to 7th order created by staff and students of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics) as possibly a staring point for a poor man's version of the Theoretical Research Bacch3D4Mac? Some of us may already own a Mac with a high-quality audio interface but do not know how-to tinker with mixing and rendering 3D binaural audio. Finding affordable high-fidelity in-ear binaural microphones may also be a challenge. Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Just look for binaural in ear mics on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/SOUND-PROFES...9915765&sprefix=binaural+in+ea,aps,107&sr=8-3

 

[phoenixdogfan]

This was also my impression. although the 3D recording or reproduction on speakers are different from speaker simulations, the papers I remember on those various topics start around the 70s.

Dolby did a ’Apple’ a few times IMO by limiting the options of a known tech and pushing for that limited version as a patented standard(ethically lame but admittedly convenient for professionals).

BACCH is focused on stereo speakers and the crosstalk reduction thingy. It is their main product. I have a hard time seeing what that has to do with Smyth. It is cool and clever but also never interested me. All my music was made by people using ”normal” speakers and expecting listeners to do the same.
They do have an extra tool for headphone playback, but isn’t it still about reproducing the crosstalkless speaker sound?

In any case, if the argument was about who between Smyth and Choueiri invented recording impulses and using convolution, the answer is obviously neither of them.

As for pricing... on one hand they’re both small players buying in small quantities, not selling a all lot, so the work time and costs per unit go way up and the business model must include huge margins to just hopefully someday be viable.
On the other hand, a pair of binaural mics and an infrared webcam plugged into our own computer with the right software, that would allow similar results for most users and shouldn’t cost much(unless they give you 2k$ mics?).

And it seems like Smyth and Baach are at cross purposes. On the one hand, in at least some circumstances, a variety of headphone virtualizers add cross talk to their amps to counteract the unnatural in your head effect of headphones where left channel sound is delivered only to the left ear, etc, in order to create a more speaker-like experience.

Choueriri, on the other hand, wants to eliminate the cross talk effect in speakers to make them sound more like headphones? I guess.

So which approach is correct, or is it more correct to say that there should exist some crosstalk in sound reproduction so they don't sound like headphones but not so much as to make the tranducers sound like speakers? If so, what's the exact right amount of the secret sauce, how is it measured, and how is it possible to verify that?

Right now, IMHO, the Baach approach is a hypothesis held together by the anecdotal testimony of a very, very few people. It has not been widely demonstrated, and it has not been reviewed to determine its effect relative to a standard set up with either speakers or headphones. While I don't question that it will change and alter the listening experience dramatically, I do question whether that alteration creates a more transparent channel to the information stored on the original recording or whether it is merely creating an interesting sound effect.

So while, (after I transition to a Mac Mini for my HTPC later this year) I may give the basic version of this software an in home trial, I'm going to be very skeptical and questioning of what I'm listening to.

 

[GeorgeA]

Optical or magnetic tracking?

Optical tracking as it also helps me siting correctly aligned against the centre reference.

 

[castleofargh]

And it seems like Smyth and Baach are at cross purposes. On the one hand, in at least some circumstances, a variety of headphone virtualizers add cross talk to their amps to counteract the unnatural in your head effect of headphones where left channel sound is delivered only to the left ear, etc, in order to create a more speaker-like experience.

Choueriri, on the other hand, wants to eliminate the cross talk effect in speakers to make them sound more like headphones? I guess.

So which approach is correct, or is it more correct to say that there should exist some crosstalk in sound reproduction so they don't sound like headphones but not so much as to make the tranducers sound like speakers? If so, what's the exact right amount of the secret sauce, how is it measured, and how is it possible to verify that?

Right now, IMHO, the Baach approach is a hypothesis held together by the anecdotal testimony of a very, very few people. It has not been widely demonstrated, and it has not been reviewed to determine its effect relative to a standard set up with either speakers or headphones. While I don't question that it will change and alter the listening experience dramatically, I do question whether that alteration creates a more transparent channel to the information stored on the original recording or whether it is merely creating an interesting sound effect.

So while, (after I transition to a Mac Mini for my HTPC later this year) I may give the basic version of this software an in home trial, I'm going to be very skeptical and questioning of what I'm listening to.

It really is all about what you’re trying to achieve. Fundamentally, neither stereo speakers nor unprocessed headphones are a natural way to locate recorded sources. Then again, the cues in an album or a movie are usually 132% made from scratch in post production using normal speakers as monitors. So... accurate might be too strong a word here.
Someone will see the signal on an album compared to what reaches our ears and declare that speakers are vastly inferior to headphones. It’s a correct conclusion based on that reference, and yet here we are trying to get headphones to sound more like speakers in a room.

Ideally you’d go full Griesinger, go at a concert with binaural mics in your ears and record it while remaing frozen in place. Then you EQ your headphone and you’re golden. I’d say that’s the correct way, but oh so impractical and limited.

Some members right here were quite interested in crosstalk cancelation and experimented with physical obstruction and placements some years ago. I think @jgazal was involved or at least very curious, but I can’t remember who else was in on this. Anyway, they’ll know who they are and will probably have more to say than me who early on had decided I didn’t care for it. And so I humbly pass the binaural mic to them.