seanadams said the following on 29/10/2005 03:28:
on a bit of a tangent here... (not a joke)
There is another kind of "skin effect" which supposes that the geometry
of the face and ears play a huge role in how we resolve the source of a
sound in space. Specifically, components above a couple KHz like to
stick to the surface of your head, resulting in low frequencies hitting
the ears mostly directly, but with increasing frequency there is a very
complex mix of phase shift and reflections created by the outside of
your noggin that the brain needs in order create the sense that we call
"soundstage". Just looking at the funny shape of the outer ear indicates
there's a whole lot of "mechanical" processing going on there. This is
why headphones, althgouh they can have extremely _clear_ sound, are not
real good at putting the sounds all around you in space.
Some guys are working to model this phenomenon and create filters for
headphones that go way beyond simply mixing in a little sound from the
other channel:
http://www.headphone.com/products/faqs/about-headroom-crossfeed/fixing-headphones-with-electronics/
This technology is basically artifically emulating the HRTF
(Head-Related Transfer function).
If you have access to the appropriate equipment (anechoic chamber,
in-ear measurement mics, analyser, sound sources, etc.) you can have
your own HRTF measured and, in theory (maybe even in practise) create a
filter with the same response which can be applied to music that is
being listened to through headphones to add the spatial content.
slimserver could support this by having the capability of applying any
arbitrary digital filter function to its output.
Of course, you'd still need to get your HRTF measured!
R.
--
http://robinbowes.com
If a man speaks in a forest,
and his wife's not there,
is he still wrong?
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