![]() ![]() Moreover, the sound-sources are attached to our head, so head movements no longer add information. The sound of the right (left) transducer will not reach the left (right) ear and the reflections on the oracles have changed and hardly interfere with the original soundwave. The transducers are directly coupled to our ears. With his head in a fixed position, he will find an exact localization much more difficult.Īll these mechanisms are missing when we hear music using headphones. He will start turning his head, although he can’t see it. For a demonstration blindfold a friend and ask him to locate a ticking clock that you have hidden in the room. Changes in sound levels, delay times and sound color refine our sense of direction. The information obtained by these mechanisms is further refined by movements of the head. Third, reflections of soundwaves on the walls of the listening room produce reverberation that conveys an extra feeling of space. As these reflections depend on the direction of the soundwave, the “color” of the sound changes with the direction of the source. Especially, the reflections at the ear pinnae interfere with the soundwaves that directly enter the ear canal and amplify or attenuate specific frequency components. Second, the soundwaves are partly absorbed and partly reflected by the listener’s head. The level of attenuation and the delay time of this crossfeed signal provide important directional information. These systems work by simulating the mechanisms that a person uses to locate and externalize sources of sound:įirst, the sound of a source to the right side of the listener (e.g., the right loudspeaker in a stereo setup) not only reaches the right ear, but attenuated and delayed, is also heard by the left ear. These systems all more-or-less cure the problem of the in-head localization experienced with headphones. The analogue headphone amplifiers of HeadRoom and the digital systems of Sony (VIP 1000), Sennheiser (Lucas), and AKG (Hearo 777) are well-known examples. In the last few years, a number of systems have appeared on the hi-fi market that also produce crossfeed, but in a much more refined way. Although the crossfeed thus produced cured the “buzzing bees,” the sound became extremely dry and I dropped the idea. Some 15 years ago I experimented with electronic crossfeed by bridging the left and right outputs of the headphone channel of my amplifier with resistors. ![]() This is most annoying, like a bee buzzing in one’s ear. With recordings presenting a wide soundstage, some instruments are heard in one of the two audio channels only. ![]() The in-head localization phenomenon did not please me. Nonetheless, listening was not all heaven on earth. Consequently, I learned to appreciate good quality “cans.” This appreciation has increased since, as a teenager and as a student, I never had the financial means to buy loudspeakers that could stand up to the sound quality offered by my Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic headphones. Throughout my life, my musical tastes always have been somewhat different from that of the other people I lived with. For me, listening to music is a very private affair. ![]()
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