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Surround Sound in Headphones

soundguys.com

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Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#81

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

Shish2k wrote: post #49
TimTheTinker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes sense, since Atmos is a discrete set of channels designed for speakers in specific locations around the listener. The alternatives are: - record a real sound space using a binaural mic head, then simply use 2-channel output. Head tracking not supported, HRTF is physical not modeled/virtual. - build a 3D virtual sound space. Apply the HRTF in post-production with output to 2 headphone channels. Head trackin…

> encode a potentially large number of discrete channels and their positions in 3D space This does seem like a lot - but at the same time, it doesn’t seem like much compared to the advances in graphics over the past decades? I feel like if audio had kept up with video, we should have an equivalent to Physically Based Rendering / raytracing by now...

I straight up blame Creative. They stagnated any innovators/challengers back in the sound card era, set the outline of how game audio apis work, then became irrelevant. Aureal was shipping technology superior to what we have today 25 years ago. It'd be trivial to do what they were doing in software today. I really wish someone like MS would step up here and show some leadership by just shipping a spatial audio API in directx that's closer to what's actually possible.

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#82

Post by teddyh »

ghusbands wrote: post #80
teddyh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t call that a “rendition”. A “cover” or ”remake” would be a better term; it takes some liberties with the source material. Compare it to (one of) the original music: https://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/media/Oakvalley/soamc/000/MP3/...

It sounds the same as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLMhBE99byM to me. What makes you sure it's not just the original mod with a filter for headphones, as it claims to be?

Huh, I guess there are multiple variants of that same mod, made by different people. It could very well be as you say.

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#83

Post by nitrogen »

colanderman wrote: post #70
ryukafalz wrote: post #21

HRTFs are awesome, but I really wish we could have an open standard here and not a dozen competing proprietary ones. It feels like you really just need a standard way to encode the position of multiple audio tracks in 3D space and let your implementation of choice do the spatialization for you. Anyway, fun fact: OpenAL Soft has an implementation of this. If any games you play use it (Minecraft notably does) you can g…

> a standard way to encode the position of multiple audio tracks in 3D space Isn't that the idea behind Ambisonics [1], which OpenAL Soft is based on? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambisonics

Ambisonics is for encoding a full-sphere soundfield. The components have a fixed location. Positioning individual tracks is not quite the same thing, as they can start/stop/move, and they are not limited to spherical harmonics. Video games have done exactly this for ages, but the only storage and distribution formats for that type of positional audio are still proprietary (e.g. Atmos).

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#84

Post by nitrogen »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #72
w0utert wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the other comments I'm confused, pretty much any game I've played for the past few years supports surround sound, most of them 7.1 even. What I don't understand is why Dolby Atmos is not used much more for games. Xbox One and PC support it but only very few titles use it. PS4 and PS5 don't support it all for games (only for video content), despite all Sony's bragging about their dedication to PS5 audio. Dolby At…

I suspect it's due to cost and licensing to use that particular brand and technology.

It shouldn't even be necessary. If you look at the DirectSound channel listing from ages and ages ago, I think even in Windows XP, there are height channels listed. But I've never seen a sound card that used them or let you select any higher than 7.1 in the Sound control panel.

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#85

Post by nitrogen »

daggersandscars wrote: post #63
nallic wrote: post #54

I have a 5.1 surround system (with real speakers around me) and I find the lack of surround support in games sad. How come not any game supports output to a surround system - they have their sound sources in a 3D environment and should be able to mix a sound output with arbtrary speaker setup ?

Many (most?) PC games support surround sound. (Re another comment: Fortnite supposedly supports both 5.1 and 7.1. I have not tried it.) But primarily via the analog audio outputs on the back of a PC motherboard. If you've hooked your PC into your surround sound setup via HDMI, optical cable, or other single connection method, it is unlikely to work. If your surround sound amp supports per-channel analog in and your P…

I use HDMI with 7.1 PCM for audio from my gaming PC. It requires setting up an A/V receiver as a second monitor, which is kind of annoying, but it can be a "clone" of the primary gaming monitor. I do get immersive 2D surround sound from games.

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#86

Post by triplesec »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #2

This article mentions the Waves NX system, but I think it's important for those interested to know that the Waves NX system is rather half-baked. It is not extensible, nor open source in any respect. It's proprietary and generally unavailable in any useful contexts. I was also surprised to see no mention of the Web Audio API implementations of HRTF and multi-channel ambisonic decoding down to binaural in the browser.…

WavesNX may have been a good idea, but it's badly-made, fights with drivers, resulting it being in an actively-antagonistic piece of Dell bloatware, unfortunately.

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#87

Post by Darthy »

gooderist wrote: post #16

Shameless plug: My company also makes virtual surround sound software for headphones. But unlike other solutions (like Atmos and Airpods Pro) we generate your HRTF from a photo of your ear using machine learning. If you're interested in this stuff, please check us out too: https://embody.co/

That sounds interesting! Whats the url on your website where I upload my right ear image, enter my cc details for a one time payment and get to download my HRTF in the standard AES69 format?

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#88

Post by foerbert »

gooderist wrote: post #16

Shameless plug: My company also makes virtual surround sound software for headphones. But unlike other solutions (like Atmos and Airpods Pro) we generate your HRTF from a photo of your ear using machine learning. If you're interested in this stuff, please check us out too: https://embody.co/

I realize this is, at least most directly, a 'me' problem, but I can't remember the last time I had so much trouble trying to get a website to work with uMatrix. I've given up twice now, to be honest.

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#89

Post by ganafagol »

For an article posted to Hacker News, this is disappointingly low on technical details. So there is some "heavy signal processing" involved. And there are a few brands that sell it. Um ok. But how do they work? How do they simulate those clues tht the ears get through physical phenomena?

As-is, the article is more like a mix of product history and sales pitch than something a hacker enjoys/expects.

Imagine an article about brtfs just mentioning when it started and that it procides snapshots. Yeah .. sure, but how? That's what interests a hacker.

Re: Surround Sound in Headphones

#90

Post by anastasiadevana »

ryukafalz wrote: post #21

HRTFs are awesome, but I really wish we could have an open standard here and not a dozen competing proprietary ones. It feels like you really just need a standard way to encode the position of multiple audio tracks in 3D space and let your implementation of choice do the spatialization for you. Anyway, fun fact: OpenAL Soft has an implementation of this. If any games you play use it (Minecraft notably does) you can g…

There is, except that every big company wants its own piece of the pie: https://adm.ebu.io/
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