HRTF and soundcards

[Entropy]

This is too simple a situation. Of course it will fail because absolute cancellation only occurs at one point, but we have two ears.

Yes, there are problems with using HRTF's with speakers. But that doesn't mean it's a pointless exercise. The Vortex2 already showed tangible 3D positioning from two speakers, and that was developed quite some time ago.

What can I say? Sometimes you get lucky and it works out. Other times it works like crap, but you never notice because you are immersed in the game. By its very nature, you tend to remember the hits not the misses.

Yes "of course it will fail" - but it's integral to the scheme! Just try it, you're a physicist, you should have no problem getting white noise sources, and they are available on any number of test CDs, or you can make do with FM noise with the mono button pushed in.

You will find that cancellation works reasonably good only at low frequencies, the very frequencies where we are largely insensitive to direction. The thing is though - it's easy to test for yourself. Even fun in a nerdy way.

I think it's safe to say I've had my say in this thread. I really just wanted to tell K.I.L.E.R. to play his games and enjoy without worrying overly. I've just spent too much time on these subjects not to still be exciteable.

 

[KimB]

What can I say? Sometimes you get lucky and it works out. Other times it works like crap, but you never notice because you are immersed in the game. By its very nature, you tend to remember the hits not the misses.

I can buy that. But that doesn't make it any less of an improvement.

Yes "of course it will fail" - but it's integral to the scheme! Just try it, you're a physicist, you should have no problem getting white noise sources, and they are available on any number of test CDs, or you can make do with FM noise with the mono button pushed in.

Yeah, but I'm a theoretical cosmologist While I'm sure we have the apparatus somewhere in the department to test this experimentally (most likely for undergrad classes), I haven't been in that area in years....

You will find that cancellation works reasonably good only at low frequencies, the very frequencies where we are largely insensitive to direction. The thing is though - it's easy to test for yourself. Even fun in a nerdy way.

Well, sure, that makes sense. And you shouldn't even attempt the cancellation at wavelengths much smaller than the width of an average head (which would be a couple kHz in frequency space), so some sort of low-pass filter should be used for the cancellation algorithm. But it can still be much better than simple stereo.