I do not know if you will hear the same thing. This video made me sense and hear that a mouse, or a big bug, was getting into something to my right as if it were all the way over across the room. It has a clicking type sound.
Listen at a good volume. Around :23 is the first hint of it. At 1:07 is when it was most pronounced. It made me jump the first time I heard it. It should sound far to your right across the room. I listen nearfield.
Can you hear the effect? I wonder how its produced on this video.
YouTube - Lars Danielsson ''Tarantella'' - jazz baltica 2010 (fragm. 1)
Listen at a good volume. Around :23 is the first hint of it. At 1:07 is when it was most pronounced. It made me jump the first time I heard it. It should sound far to your right across the room. I listen nearfield.
Can you hear the effect? I wonder how its produced on this video.
YouTube - Lars Danielsson ''Tarantella'' - jazz baltica 2010 (fragm. 1)
Binaural recordings heard through headphones have been known as far back as at least the early 1960s and maybe a lot eariler. Probably into the 1950s when two track tape recorders became widely available. Some have taken this idea to extremes. This includes building exact replicas of human heads with materials having the same acoustical properties as flesh, bones, and cartilage. JVC marketed a set of headphones having condenser microphones built into them for making binaural recordings in the 1970s. Lafayette radio sold a small dual mike unit for this purpose in the late 1950s. Binaural recordings capture the sound that would fall on your ears if you were sitting in the same location as the microphones and puts them where they would be if you were there, right at your own ears. But the system has a fatal flaw. Can you guess what it is? Choueiri attempts to use binaural recordings played through loudspeakers, he's not the first. He also uses some sort of processor that attempts to cancel the sound of the left speaker heard at the right ear and visa versa. His system uses only two loudspeakers. I don't know what Carver's sonic holography is but it can't be that. There aren't many binaural recordings as a percentage of the commercial market and the processing power Choueiri uses was probably not feasible in the mid 1970s when Carver's preamp was marketed.
Other ambiophonic techniques use stereophonic recordings and for its full realization multiple speakers and additional processors to recreate recording venue acoustics that binaural recordings already have inherent in them. Stereophonic recordings are very different from binaural recordings. In stereophonic recordings made even with only two microphones, the mikes are much closer to the musicians than the audience ever gets and are usually fairly directional (cardiod) resulting in the percentage of recorded sound that is the reverberant field being much smaller. Attempts to isolate and capture this sound or to record the reverberant field and reproduce it as separate channels was the goal of quadraphonic sound in the 1970s. It disappeared from the market IMO because it was a technical failure. BTW, home theater could be called "son of quadraphonic sound." They have much in common.
3D3A Lab at Princeton University
I wonder if Dr. Choueiri would come out to the 2011 Burning Amp Festival to give a talk and demonstration.
I wonder if Dr. Choueiri would come out to the 2011 Burning Amp Festival to give a talk and demonstration.
I think your last sentence sums it up (the rest is wrong). Binaural sound only works through headphones, but then it can work extremely well. Headphones are inconvenient for joe public, and until recently the wearing of headphones marked a person out as a nerd. Now headphones are trendy, maybe binaural will make a comeback.Soundminded said:
Now I suppose it is just about possible that your hearing is unusual, so binaural doesn't work for you, but you can't extrapolate from one person's hearing and declare an accepted part of science is simply wrong. You need more evidence than that.
You are mistaken. What's wrong with binaural recordings played with headphones is that when you turn your head even slightly, the sound turns with it. Your brain immediately comes to the only conclusion it can, that the source of sound is inside your head. Among the extreme attempts to fix this problem have been "nearphones" which are an array of tiny speakers mounted in an enclosed chair or swing, each pair playing sound recorded with separate pairs of microphones, and the same idea using accelerometers to sense head movement changing from tracks with one recorded microphone pair to another played through headphones. These schemes are impractical and don't work. Binaural technology has been a failure. When you truly grasp the reason, it becomes ovious why it can never be made to work.
I accept that this is a disadvantage of binaural, but it does not necessarily bring the sounds inside your head. I guess it may depend on how much you normally move your head during live music.
However your claim, IIRC, was that the alleged failure of binaural is because the normal explanation of stereo (phase at LF, amplitude at HF) is wrong. The 'sound in head' argument does not address this issue so is a red herring.
However your claim, IIRC, was that the alleged failure of binaural is because the normal explanation of stereo (phase at LF, amplitude at HF) is wrong. The 'sound in head' argument does not address this issue so is a red herring.
As I pointed out previously the binaural recording/playback system using headphones meets all of the criteria set forth in the 1907 paper but it does not convey directionality of sound. This may seem confusing because all of the reverberation is there and the sources can have different points of origin between your left and right ears but that is not true directionality. What is true directionality? It's when you can suddenly hear a sound and turn your head in the direction it is coming from. You can't do that with binaural headphone sounds but you can in the real world and that makes all of the difference. I'm not at liberty to give you a further explanation of why but this has long been known as the fatal flaw of binaural sound.
Two different but related issues: determining direction, and responding to that direction. If we particularly wish to locate the direction of a sound we may turn our head, but surely when listening to music the main interest is the sound rather than where it is coming from? Direction is a secondary effect. We can enjoy music in mono, but we would not enjoy music with pitch or rhythm errors.
Given that some people now choose to listen with headphones, a binaural signal (either recorded that way, or processed from normal stereo) would be better for them than normal stereo.
Given that some people now choose to listen with headphones, a binaural signal (either recorded that way, or processed from normal stereo) would be better for them than normal stereo.
The ability to detect the direction of the source of sound is one of the most critical elements in hearing. It is among the reasons higher animals developed hearing in the first place and why it developed binaurally. The hearing of the presence of a new element in the environment and the ability and instinct to turn your head towards it quickly and accurately so that you can look straight at it is a key asset for survival. While directionality is not one of the four basic elements of music, it is an important component in its appreciation for many reasons including some I won't discuss. But its importance is reflected in the commercial success of stereophonic sound over monophonic sound even if it wasn't as well developed as more channels would have made it and the technical failure to understand it sufficiently was a key element in the failure of quadraphonic sound. It is also one of the main driving factors behind ambiophonic sound.
The Carver Holographic generator (early version - he may have modified it by now) uses 125uS all-pass delay (I SPICE'd the circuit). It sends an inverted, delayed and attenuated (roughly 5dB) signal to the output mix of the other channel, and vice versa. The circuit is not recursive, but I'm not sure how much that would improve it anyway since a typical listening room side wall reflections and width of speaker diaphrams will limit how good it can work. Apparently the patent ran out on the Carver circuit and now others are marketing it as their own thing. I thought the original binaural recordings were done in the 1930's. I think Soundminded is expecting too much. No method is capable of being perfect. The better question is does it make the listening experience better. More emotionally involving. More theraputic... Who needs to turn their head when listening to a good CD or DVD?
No takers?
This video made me think I heard a mouse rustling all the way over across my room. It has a clicking type sound. Over the right shoulder. My nearfields are only a few feet away, but this sounded almost in the other room. How is that possible?
Listen around 00:23 is the first hint. Then, at 1:07 is when it was most pronounced. It made me jump when I heard it. It should sound far to your right across the room.
Can you hear this effect?
This video made me think I heard a mouse rustling all the way over across my room. It has a clicking type sound. Over the right shoulder. My nearfields are only a few feet away, but this sounded almost in the other room. How is that possible?
Listen around 00:23 is the first hint. Then, at 1:07 is when it was most pronounced. It made me jump when I heard it. It should sound far to your right across the room.
Can you hear this effect?
head tracking virtualization - emulating room/speaker multichannel sound through headphones is commercially avaliable
as I mentioned earlier in a short demo it seemed to work well at reproducing the multichannel loudspeaker system as spatially stable "outside of your head" audio image
SVS Technology
many reviews agree that it does reproduce the external room/loudspeaker sytem that it is calibrated against
as I mentioned earlier in a short demo it seemed to work well at reproducing the multichannel loudspeaker system as spatially stable "outside of your head" audio image
SVS Technology
many reviews agree that it does reproduce the external room/loudspeaker sytem that it is calibrated against
Big evidence : in many classic symphonies, the orchestra disposition is taken in consideration by the composer. He writes for the sound, but also for the space that's an important part of what he wants the public perceives.
On a real event, there is a kind of important correlation between visual and acoustical events. Without this help, our "blind" systems are in trouble for creating a plausible illusion. Knowing this perfectly, the recording team will emphasize some elements, by EQ, added reverb, phase manipulations, variable height of the musicians and so and on (absolutely untouched binaural recordings are very difficult to do, it's an art).
At the other end of the chain, then it's not an heresy if the user tries also to improve this. All the techniques that try to resolve the cross talk issue are IMO a real improvement over a standard system.
About turning head, recently I had a system set up where for example the violins on the left were perceived louder when turning the head towards them. Without the visual context, this is not adding any realism, just a gadget.
On a real event, there is a kind of important correlation between visual and acoustical events. Without this help, our "blind" systems are in trouble for creating a plausible illusion. Knowing this perfectly, the recording team will emphasize some elements, by EQ, added reverb, phase manipulations, variable height of the musicians and so and on (absolutely untouched binaural recordings are very difficult to do, it's an art).
At the other end of the chain, then it's not an heresy if the user tries also to improve this. All the techniques that try to resolve the cross talk issue are IMO a real improvement over a standard system.
About turning head, recently I had a system set up where for example the violins on the left were perceived louder when turning the head towards them. Without the visual context, this is not adding any realism, just a gadget.
Recording techniques vary a lot. It's anybodies guess what will improve the listening experience at the playback end. Inter-aural cancellation in something that I find is usually an improvement, and is sometimes a huge improvement IMO.
Polk was clever in that they achieved the roughly 125uS delay by having the "correction speaker driver" be physically displaced by about 8 inches on the baffle panel, so then all they needed to do was drive it with an attenuated and phase reversed signal from the opposite channel.
What I'm working on now is a preamp that besides having an excellent tone control system, has variable L+R and L-XR auxiliary outputs. The L-XR (variable amount of cancellation of common signal but with a stereo output) will drive a Lexicon digital reverb which will drive side speakers. The L+R out will drive the center speaker. The only "steering" will be the fact that the L+R output will inherently cancel signals to the degree that they are L-R (on both channels but out of phase with each other), and the L-XR circuit largely cancels anything that is common to both channels and in phase with each other. For anything resembling symphony music, I expect this to be the way to go. For rock music or movies, I expect to prefer using my inter-aural cancellation circuit, with or without "steering" as provided in my Yamaha home theater receiver.
Since it's just not practical to have more than five speakers in my living room, I don't care to go beyond that. If I had a dedicated theater room, I might add more speakers, but I want to actually have a life right there in my listening/viewing room, so I would never bother with a dedicated theater room. That's for movie editors and such. In real life, I don't know anybody who has more than 5 speakers, and by far most only have two or three speakers. Adding extra woofers is another thing. With additional woofers strategically placed, you can get a much more even response and thereby much less sense of boominess. I love to turn up the bass a bit, but not if it sounds boomy.
Polk was clever in that they achieved the roughly 125uS delay by having the "correction speaker driver" be physically displaced by about 8 inches on the baffle panel, so then all they needed to do was drive it with an attenuated and phase reversed signal from the opposite channel.
What I'm working on now is a preamp that besides having an excellent tone control system, has variable L+R and L-XR auxiliary outputs. The L-XR (variable amount of cancellation of common signal but with a stereo output) will drive a Lexicon digital reverb which will drive side speakers. The L+R out will drive the center speaker. The only "steering" will be the fact that the L+R output will inherently cancel signals to the degree that they are L-R (on both channels but out of phase with each other), and the L-XR circuit largely cancels anything that is common to both channels and in phase with each other. For anything resembling symphony music, I expect this to be the way to go. For rock music or movies, I expect to prefer using my inter-aural cancellation circuit, with or without "steering" as provided in my Yamaha home theater receiver.
Since it's just not practical to have more than five speakers in my living room, I don't care to go beyond that. If I had a dedicated theater room, I might add more speakers, but I want to actually have a life right there in my listening/viewing room, so I would never bother with a dedicated theater room. That's for movie editors and such. In real life, I don't know anybody who has more than 5 speakers, and by far most only have two or three speakers. Adding extra woofers is another thing. With additional woofers strategically placed, you can get a much more even response and thereby much less sense of boominess. I love to turn up the bass a bit, but not if it sounds boomy.
Such a preamp can be promising. I suppose that the Lexicon can be used as a pure line delay and not only as a reverb unit ?
As a speaker guy I have a XTC done acoustically, following the same principle than Polk, but acoustic solutions are never 100% efficient. I think that a solution embedded in a preamp with multiple speakers can be much better, and free of the caveats of some algorithm based solutions.
As a speaker guy I have a XTC done acoustically, following the same principle than Polk, but acoustic solutions are never 100% efficient. I think that a solution embedded in a preamp with multiple speakers can be much better, and free of the caveats of some algorithm based solutions.
for that on stage feel: You can't have stereo without mono.
(yes, there is more senses used than hearing when mixing is done)
the music starts from big mono first, then everything else goes outward.
Sometimes, I have to use certain special equipment to fix mixes that come to me before print.
hmmm maybe a downsized version of this could be explored:
(yes, there is more senses used than hearing when mixing is done)
the music starts from big mono first, then everything else goes outward.
Sometimes, I have to use certain special equipment to fix mixes that come to me before print.
hmmm maybe a downsized version of this could be explored:
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Perhaps people might have a look at controlling reflections and diffraction from their speaker front panels?
I had a pair of Large Advents, which imaged reasonably but not spectacularly even with the grille off, which I suspected was due to reflections from the cabinet edges. I cut a star-shaped hole in a piece of foam like this >o< -- imagine two more Vs pointing to top & bottom as the diagrammed ones do left & right (o represents the tweeter) -- with the ends of the Vs touching each other about six inches away and the tips of the Vs just outside the dome. This gives the surface wave about six inches to get absorbed by the foam, and the non-parallel shape eliminates standing waves at the absorbing material boundaries.
The improvement was noticeable right away. Images previously clinging to the cabinets were now considerably less attached to the boxes. A friend said: "with this you don't need surround", which was a bit of an exaggeration but nice to hear nonetheless.
There are a couple of disadvantages: the Spouse Acceptance Factor of two sliced-up blocks of foam on grille-less speakers is just about nil, and you probably want to find something more permanent to affix them than the double-sided tape I used, which tended to fail in hot weather.
I had a pair of Large Advents, which imaged reasonably but not spectacularly even with the grille off, which I suspected was due to reflections from the cabinet edges. I cut a star-shaped hole in a piece of foam like this >o< -- imagine two more Vs pointing to top & bottom as the diagrammed ones do left & right (o represents the tweeter) -- with the ends of the Vs touching each other about six inches away and the tips of the Vs just outside the dome. This gives the surface wave about six inches to get absorbed by the foam, and the non-parallel shape eliminates standing waves at the absorbing material boundaries.
The improvement was noticeable right away. Images previously clinging to the cabinets were now considerably less attached to the boxes. A friend said: "with this you don't need surround", which was a bit of an exaggeration but nice to hear nonetheless.
There are a couple of disadvantages: the Spouse Acceptance Factor of two sliced-up blocks of foam on grille-less speakers is just about nil, and you probably want to find something more permanent to affix them than the double-sided tape I used, which tended to fail in hot weather.
DSP_Geek, That sounds like a good idea. I've got regular thin felt about a half inch out from my Millenium SEAS one inch domes now. I may add what you did with thicker felt. Linkwitz actually measured and showed frequency resonse ripple in the 3kHZ region due to diffraction effects. I didn't realize 3kHZ would diffract significantly, but apparently I was wrong.
Davesnothere, That console looks like it was designed by an engineer, for an engineer. Not real self explanatory to others. I've been wanting to design and build a surround sound recording mixer for a long time. It would be a fun challenge. Now that that kind of thing is all done in software, it's probably over my head, but you never know.
Davesnothere, That console looks like it was designed by an engineer, for an engineer. Not real self explanatory to others. I've been wanting to design and build a surround sound recording mixer for a long time. It would be a fun challenge. Now that that kind of thing is all done in software, it's probably over my head, but you never know.
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