"The argument that open headphones would add a second 'pinna response' to a binaural signal doesn't hold. The whole point of the pinnae is that the response depends on direction, and with headphones that is not the case. "
Well except the headphones do have a direction if they are outside your Pinnae - in the case of my HD6000s the driver is about 2 cm outside my pinnae in the middle of my ear so they would have whatever the HRTF is for being close to / next to your ear, in the same way, I guess a mosquito has when it flies close to your ear can be localised as it flies past the same position, admittedly that is a moving object unlike headphones ... it would interesting to see if there are any papers/listening tests which have tested lovcalisation with HRTFs and different types of headphones - are there any ? On Sat, 20 Jun 2020 at 09:26, Fons Adriaensen <f...@linuxaudio.org> wrote: > On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 11:12:38PM +0100, Augustine Leudar wrote: > > > I normally do installation work but lockdown has steered me towards > working > > on binaural work that can be streamed. Obviously, with speakers, I have a > > calibrated system, room treatment etc > > > I have a pair of Sennheiser HD600s > > that I use but it occurs to me that these kinds of over-ear headphones > may > > not be best suited for binaural work as there may be some pinna filtering > > seeing as the driver is as large as my pinna, so I was thinking earbuds > > might be more suitable as they bypass the pinna altogether and you are > just > > left with the HRTFs > > In may experience binaural works best with open headphones. Earbuds have > a very strong occlusion effect, and there is experimental evidence that > this prevents externalisation. > > Occlusion means that the acoustic impedance as seen by the ear is changed > by being in a closed volume. It's why you hear your own voice much stronger > when you close the ear canal. > > It is possible to remove occlusion even with closed headphones, but this > requires active systems. Noise cancellation using feedback from within > the headphone will do this to some degree as a side effect. Feedforward > systems don't. This is an area of active research (in which I'm involved). > > That said, there's a lot of difference in binaural performance even > among high quality open headphones. One factor that seems to have an > influence is how well the phase/delay response is matched between the > two sides. For some headphones this is intentionally 'randomised', > some people seem to prefer that for normal (non-binaural) listening. > It's quite simple to test: listen to a mono signal. If the responses > are well matched you should get a solid image dead center. If not, > even a mono signal will be somewhat 'diffuse'. This is called the > 'Tonmeister test' in some circles :-) > > The argument that open headphones would add a second 'pinna response' > to a binaural signal doesn't hold. The whole point of the pinnae is > that the response depends on direction, and with headphones that > is not the case. What remains is a fixed effect that can be removed > by normal equalisation or as part of the design. > > Ciao, > > -- > FA > > _______________________________________________ > Sursound mailing list > Sursound@music.vt.edu > https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound - unsubscribe here, > edit account or options, view archives and so on. > -- Artist website: www.augustineleudar.com Business website: www.magikdoor.net +44(0)7555784775 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20200623/134ac289/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound - unsubscribe here, edit account or options, view archives and so on.
