21–30 of 107 posts
Anyway, fun fact: OpenAL Soft has an implementation of this. If any games you play use it (Minecraft notably does) you can get 3D audio by just setting 'hrtf = true' in your OpenAL config.
Best case scenario I've ever had is that it's distracting as hell.
Obviously an outlier here, but I have as much desire to hear sounds behind my ears as I do to see images around my butt. Best case scenario I've ever had is that it's distracting as hell.
Obviously an outlier here, but I have as much desire to hear sounds behind my ears as I do to see images around my butt. Best case scenario I've ever had is that it's distracting as hell.
I think it would nice to have headphones that can detect orientation accurately and do positional audio. Probably a gimmick but maybe some of the VR headset technology will trickle down.
The valve index headset does a great job with this. They use speakers a few cm away from each ear. The sound is one of the most immersive elements in my opinion. It doesn't get alot of attention because it's so well implemented that it's almost hard to notice.
Speaking of, my first time in a virtual room with the Index was super convincing because of the sound, less so my poor 970 struggling to keep up. I could move around and hear the sound sources stay fixed in a physical (virtual space). Lean towards a speaker on the desk and it gets louder exactly as you move your head. Sound is definitely underrated for creating a physical presence!
Many years ago I had an Aureal 8830 Vortex 2-based soundcard and its spatial audio was amazing especially given that it didn't require any special hardware, beyond the soundcard itself. It was really crushing when Creative Labs bought Aureal and buried the IP.
i went to a qualcomm presentation at CES a decade ago where they demoed surround sound with basic cheap stereo cans and it was impressive as hell. i was always surprised it never seemed to take off as a general thing.
my 2 cents is that it's really tough to market high quality audio despite a clear market willing to buy high quality audio. There are dozens of ostensibly high quality brands selling 500 dollar headphones with drastically different audio quality. The audiophile community would often have you believe that all such headphones are junk and a random small brand has the best headphones of all. At least tvs have color accu…
It's hard to compare when a person goes into one shop and hears an action movie, but in another one he hears a concert/symphony on a different speaker/headset.
I find the way some of these surround virtualizations work to be odd. Like when I used Atmos, it sounded more like I was in a room surrounded by speakers instead of like I was actually immersed in the content. Maybe that's desirable for movies? It certainly didn't make sense to me for games.
https://amp.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/aouajt/what_hea...
i went to a qualcomm presentation at CES a decade ago where they demoed surround sound with basic cheap stereo cans and it was impressive as hell. i was always surprised it never seemed to take off as a general thing.
my 2 cents is that it's really tough to market high quality audio despite a clear market willing to buy high quality audio. There are dozens of ostensibly high quality brands selling 500 dollar headphones with drastically different audio quality. The audiophile community would often have you believe that all such headphones are junk and a random small brand has the best headphones of all. At least tvs have color accu…
So it ends up that most places just post the measurement curves and expect you to learn how to read and compare them yourselves.