[Thomasphoenix98]

I spent a few hours and figured out the essence of tuning man-loud. It does improve all Prirs by a big margin. Thanks for all the great shares guys.

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

Point Yelo on 3D Soundshop B&W prir with man-loud! Oh my God!

 

[Fox1977]

I tried the demo files from 3D soundshop but while the surround channels work quite fine, the front scene doesn’t really work for me unfortunately. They sound barely in front of me. It may be because my HRTF differs too much from @Litlgi74 ’s

 

[GeorgeA]

I’ve found an interesting video on youtube called Example of binaural sound. Actually, it’s an example about software binauralization process that makes it possible to virtualize listening with speakers on headphones. It’s also interesting to notice that binauralization was carried out by a Smyth Realiser A16.

The original text is in French. The following English version has been translated by google translate.

Example of binaural sound

Generations Y and Z massively use headphones to watch videos and, more generally, to listen to sound. Youtube on the smartphone or the PC has replaced the TV. Since the beginning of sound cinema, movie sound has been designed for the movie theater. It is designed to be listened to on speakers. Listening to stereo through headphones is unnatural. The sound that comes only from one side is not heard at all by the opposite ear which seems to be going deaf. In addition to that, the spatialized sound (eg 5.1) is downmixed to stereo which has the effect of flattening it. The software binauralization process makes it possible to virtualize listening with speakers on headphones. It can now simulate listening in a Dolby Atmos-type movie theater.

In 1979, the small Zoetrope team led by Lucas and Copolla released the film that marked the culmination of Zoetrope's project: to process sound as importantly as image. For the first time, a 360 ° sound in 5.1 is used. The film begins directly without credits on a sequence that introduces the possibilities of 360 ° sound. Even today (2021) the majority of spectators, in front of their televisions or their PCs with headphones, do not know the sound experience of this film.

We use here the first two minutes of the film to compare listening to standard headphones (Downmixed in stereo) and Binauralized listening. It should be noted that the quality of the binauralization depends in part on the taking into account of the morphology of the person and in particular of the pavilions of his ears. The filter used here uses a standard profile. Also, the quality of the binauralization can be more or less well perceived depending on the listener.

Binauralization is here performed by a Smyth Realiser A16.

- Excerpts from the documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (Ain’t Heard Nothin ’Yet Corp. and Goodmovies Entertainment, 2019)
- 2 first minutes of the movie Apocalypse Now (United Artists and Omni Zoetrope, 1979)

Source:

 

[Thomasphoenix98]

I tried the demo files from 3D soundshop but while the surround channels work quite fine, the front scene doesn’t really work for me unfortunately. They sound barely in front of me. It may be because my HRTF differs too much from @Litlgi74 ’s

How does the bbc prir front sound to your ears? With your hpeq.

 

[ivanrocks321]

got a question im trying to reach Smyth been months trying to cancel my preorders but no reply how are people able to reach them Now a days.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I tried the demo files from 3D soundshop but while the surround channels work quite fine, the front scene doesn’t really work for me unfortunately. They sound barely in front of me. It may be because my HRTF differs too much from @Litlgi74 ’s

The center is always the hardest to get right on any virtual room rendering.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Along the lines of BRIR vs PRIR and their respective merits, I've been doing some thinking. It pertains to some reading I've done on just how the binauralization process for headphones works, and which parts of the frequency response it affects. Basically, everything I've read seems to indicate that the effect is achieved by altering the FR of the headphone in the upper registers while leaving the bass alone. To me this means that a subwoofer capture on a BRIR or a PRIR should sound virtually the same.

That leads me to wonder, if there are already some excellent sub captures on some of their BRIRs posted on the drive. By excellent, I mean something that uses multi sub to smooth out or eliminate room modes, and something that goes below 20 hz, all the way into the infrasonic. Some subs can go as low as 12 hz, and with a tactile subwoofer, and the right pair of headphones, it should be possible to feel and hear that infransonic wave via the A16.

I'm even wondering if our friend John might be interesting in taking the baton and running with it on this one. I know anyone trying this would have to do at least one other speaker, but that speaker could perhaps be a center (maybe a really high quality center) to properly complete the process.

At this point, I have a very good sub, and I'm in the process of mating it to my LS 50 Metas with the help or J River, Dephonica software crossover (freeware!) and J River in a two channel set up, and i can tell everyone that it sounds amazing. Right now I'm doing 24 db per octave on High and Low pass both, with eq's provided by Maiky76 on the ASR review thread, and Dirac Live with 17 measurements in a wide angle correction. I'm going to repeat the measurement process again, altering the high pass leg of the crossover to 12 db per octave, and then rerunning the Dirac live measurement to see if that further improves the sound.

In any case, after that, I'll be doing a PRIR of the system using those optimized two channels, I'm looking at 23 channels at least, but I may get ambitious and do the 15 degree speakers, so I can have a 24 channel as well. After I'm done with that I'm thinking it might be interesting to have an ultimate subwoofer channel (mine is currently an SB 2000 which is very good, but not the best) to rotate in and pair with everything else for my LFE channel.

 

[Litlgi74]

I have a Paradigm Sub 2 which goes all the way down to 9Hz. I had planned on using it to create my PRIRs, but it requires a dedicated circuit to reach maximum performance. This is one of the finest SW I've experienced... Although I'm not allowed to let it of it's chain anymore... It cracked my drywall during the opening scene of Tron. My wife was not happy!

I ended up using a new SVS SB3000 for my recording studio PRIRs... it goes down to 18Hz... I'd post the SW PRIR to the Google drive but it was bass managed to each of the individual speakers brands. I'd have to see which frequency response report has the Low Frequency cutoff set to 60Hz.

What exactly are you wanting me to do?

 

[Om ma Ni]

Basically, everything I've read seems to indicate that the effect is achieved by altering the FR of the headphone in the upper registers while leaving the bass alone.

Do you have the range of freq (upper register) which is targeted by the binaural process for creating the image localization of sound?
Also where are the boundaries for the sub low freq for the human ears to not be able to perceive directionality or localization of the sound source?

To me this means that a subwoofer capture on a BRIR or a PRIR should sound virtually the same.

Have you tried and experiment that point?
Bc if that s the case then the Smyth BBC and Surrey room sub capture should sound the same?

 

[sander99]

Bc if that s the case then the Smyth BBC and Surrey room sub capture should sound the same?

Be carefull here: maybe there is no difference localization wise, but they still could sound different from eachother and different from other sub captures! You would still hear it if a sub+room combination had audible dips and peaks in the frequency response for example. (I don't know how the BBC and Surrey room subs are by the way, I am just talking in general.)

 

[Om ma Ni]

Be carefull here: maybe there is no difference localization wise, but they still could sound different from eachother and different from other sub captures! You would still hear it if a sub+room combination had audible dips and peaks in the frequency response for example. (I don't know how the BBC and Surrey room subs are by the way, I am just talking in general.)

Yes sure that s right in general..but the BBC and Surrey rooms are used for R&D so I suppose that they both are room corrected etc.. don t know about the speaker brands used but one of main difference is the size of the rooms with the Surrey one way bigger than the BBC one.

 

[You Gene]

Yes sure that s right in general..but the BBC and Surrey rooms are used for R&D so I suppose that they both are room corrected etc.. don t know about the speaker brands used but one of main difference is the size of the rooms with the Surrey one way bigger than the BBC one.

Surrey room : http://iosr.surrey.ac.uk/facilities/listeningroom.php
…It is usually configured for 22.2 reproduction, using 22 Genelec 8330A loudspeakers and 2 Genelec 7350A subwoofers…
see also photo page 49 of the manual...

BBC room : https://rdweb1.lh.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/periphony-for-broadcast
those look very much like the Genelec

 

[Sanctuary]

Along the lines of BRIR vs PRIR and their respective merits, I've been doing some thinking. It pertains to some reading I've done on just how the binauralization process for headphones works, and which parts of the frequency response it affects. Basically, everything I've read seems to indicate that the effect is achieved by altering the FR of the headphone in the upper registers while leaving the bass alone. To me this means that a subwoofer capture on a BRIR or a PRIR should sound virtually the same.

That leads me to wonder, if there are already some excellent sub captures on some of their BRIRs posted on the drive. By excellent, I mean something that uses multi sub to smooth out or eliminate room modes, and something that goes below 20 hz, all the way into the infrasonic. Some subs can go as low as 12 hz, and with a tactile subwoofer, and the right pair of headphones, it should be possible to feel and hear that infransonic wave via the A16.

I had assumed all along that the subs should sound nearly the same, if not exactly the same for everyone due to it needing to be directionless anyway. I meant to go through the various other PRIR files to pick out the best subs and see how they compare to my own, and if they sound better (probably will), I was planning on just using one of those for my room when I finally get my A16.

 

[castleofargh]

Do you have the range of freq (upper register) which is targeted by the binaural process for creating the image localization of sound?
Also where are the boundaries for the sub low freq for the human ears to not be able to perceive directionality or localization of the sound source?

Short answer, for localization the range of use is something like 80Hz up to 16kHz.
For 80Hz, it's my educated pick. Some papers don't find anything below 100 or 200Hz, some do. Each are kind of hyper specific tests and it's hard to say if any of it applies to us in our room. So you might as well pick a number you like ^_^.
The upper range is a nicer client. It essentially deals with loudness difference between the ears. At the top end, it seems to be almost entirely about how the pinna reflects high freqs depending on direction. Even if 16kHz was contested(it's not, beside some stuff saying it's 15kHz), we can still stop there thinking that most of us are already at our limit near 16kHz(localization or not).



Now, a free warning. Those are likely models about one sounds from one source. How we deal with speakers playing simultaneously(or virtual speakers) and how the direction cues are manufactured for multichannel tracks, that probably leads to changes in how we interpret things. With most certainly a degraded ability and range of use.
Also, if I was making a multichannel album, I wouldn't try to be a smartass and encode stuff that could only be noticed at the limit of hearing for many consumers. But that's just an educated guess.






About some of the remarks from @arnaud
when I read your comment about not benefiting from the HT and not using it, I considered not using mine and my reaction was


I believe it's fair to say that different people have "slightly" different experiences . To me, HT is the only thing that unfracks mono signals. mono on headphones is always a mess in or on top of my head. The worst it is, the more I instinctively move my head to get cues that make sense, and now it's not just mono, but everything else that collapses in my head. But bring in a somewhat custom head tracking, and with a little move, mono isn't mono anymore. my problem is solved!