5 ms·

I'm in the camp of "3d spatial is mostly a scam, just use stereo" but, without the 'head-related transfer function', (i.e. The fact that everyone's head is slig

I'm in the camp of "3d spatial is mostly a scam, just use stereo" but, without the 'head-related transfer function', (i.e. The fact that everyone's head is slightly different and it changes how you're personally used to hearing spatial sound) I think plain stereo audio can't replicate space as well for all listeners. That's why (good) atmos headphones want you to photoscan your ears and a good atmos speaker system needs a proper array of speakers surrounding you. For games it works great, much more defined locality of sounds than stereo. For music... Well I think it could work if an album was made for atmos. Not made for stereo and converted to Atmos. Another commenter mentioned the museum installations he did with music designed for a certain room. I bet those sound great in their intended spaces, I've never heard them. > You will not get any sound intended for the left ear only heard by the right and vice-versa. The fact that one ear experiences a diminished volume, a slight delay, and different reverberations is one of the major reasons we can discern sounds in 3d and not just their angle relative to our head. But hard panning like you've mentioned is still a useful musical technique and any atmos song seems to lose the ability to do that fully. Hard panning isn't realistic, but it often sounds better.

harry8 3y ago
Wow interesting. So given headphones can control exactly what vibrations go to each eardrum I guess without knowledge of your ear shapes (and head, nose, hair, etc) it would be like listening with the ears of someone else! I wonder how much difference I would be able to hear. But forget that, there could be an audiophile market startup here! So much opportunity for marketing. Listen to Beethoven with an authentic sound including 18th/19th century aristocratic wig! Empathise gender choosing which kind of wig to be virtually wearing. Hippie music with virtual audio long hair! Jazz club sounds with a virtual audio perm! The sound of a different size and shape nose - struggling to marketingspeak that one but I'm sure it's possible. It /has/ to happen, it's too perfect not to! Virt-audio ear perfection. "Don't be a prisoner to your head"
coldtea 3y ago
>I'm in the camp of "3d spatial is mostly a scam, just use stereo" That's orthogonal to what the parent claims. Their take was that spatial audio is just "stereo" rebranded, as Dolby Atmos doesn't do anything, just because it's encoded into a stereo signal to play over headphones in the end. Which is obviously wrong. Your take is more like that spatial audio isn't usually a fitting experience, from an artistic perspective (not that it doesn't do anything more that what plain stereo does or that it doesn't take extra processing logic to mix into it, and extra effort to mix songs into spatial format).
- harry8 3y ago
  >Their take was that spatial audio is just "stereo" rebranded No it was not, please try to read what is actually written because what you have reported is obviously and clearly wrong. You, me, Brian Eno _can_, regardless of my "take", record 3D audio onto 2 tracks and play it back and hear it with headphones. This has been possible for decades. I've learned today, in this very thread that what I did in the 1980s is called "binaural" You can also record and mix stereo without caring about this possibility and most do. Your choice, and especially Brian Eno's choice to make a 3D audio album or not is entirely and wholly orthogonal to the existence of "Atmos." In so far as Atmos describes speaker related tech, 3D using speakers will be inferior to using headphones, other things equal.
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  Correct, I was disagreeing with the other poster but also making it clear at the beginning that I'm not a fan of Atmos, even though I was defending the technology. The rest of my comment was about how Atmos is not the same as plain stereo. But it's still a scam.
Angostura 3y ago
> The fact that everyone's head is slightly different and it changes how you're personally used to hearing spatial sound The most recent version of iOS lets you use your phone's FaceID sensor to scan both of your ears and make a personalised model that Atmos over the Airpod Pros use. I have no idea how good the results are - bit an interesting idea. https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/set-up-airpods-personalized-spatial-audio/ https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/set-up-airpods-personalized...
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  Yeah Apple and Sony headphones that support Atmos require photo-scanning your ears. Bose and Logitech don't. In my experience, the Apple and Sony implementation of spatial audio sounds much more realistic than the Bose and Logitech ones I have tried. But those other 2 still work out okay. Especially for just gaming usage. Dolby also has a windows app that can "convert" any stereo headphones into Atmos. It also works better than plain stereo but not as good as ear scanning methods.

harry8 3y ago

Wow interesting. So given headphones can control exactly what vibrations go to each eardrum I guess without knowledge of your ear shapes (and head, nose, hair, etc) it would be like listening with the ears of someone else! I wonder how much difference I would be able to hear. But forget that, there could be an audiophile market startup here! So much opportunity for marketing. Listen to Beethoven with an authentic sound including 18th/19th century aristocratic wig! Empathise gender choosing which kind of wig to be virtually wearing. Hippie music with virtual audio long hair! Jazz club sounds with a virtual audio perm! The sound of a different size and shape nose - struggling to marketingspeak that one but I'm sure it's possible. It /has/ to happen, it's too perfect not to! Virt-audio ear perfection. "Don't be a prisoner to your head"

coldtea 3y ago

>I'm in the camp of "3d spatial is mostly a scam, just use stereo" That's orthogonal to what the parent claims. Their take was that spatial audio is just "stereo" rebranded, as Dolby Atmos doesn't do anything, just because it's encoded into a stereo signal to play over headphones in the end. Which is obviously wrong. Your take is more like that spatial audio isn't usually a fitting experience, from an artistic perspective (not that it doesn't do anything more that what plain stereo does or that it doesn't take extra processing logic to mix into it, and extra effort to mix songs into spatial format).

harry8 3y ago
>Their take was that spatial audio is just "stereo" rebranded No it was not, please try to read what is actually written because what you have reported is obviously and clearly wrong. You, me, Brian Eno _can_, regardless of my "take", record 3D audio onto 2 tracks and play it back and hear it with headphones. This has been possible for decades. I've learned today, in this very thread that what I did in the 1980s is called "binaural" You can also record and mix stereo without caring about this possibility and most do. Your choice, and especially Brian Eno's choice to make a 3D audio album or not is entirely and wholly orthogonal to the existence of "Atmos." In so far as Atmos describes speaker related tech, 3D using speakers will be inferior to using headphones, other things equal.
squeaky-clean 3y ago
Correct, I was disagreeing with the other poster but also making it clear at the beginning that I'm not a fan of Atmos, even though I was defending the technology. The rest of my comment was about how Atmos is not the same as plain stereo. But it's still a scam.

Angostura 3y ago

> The fact that everyone's head is slightly different and it changes how you're personally used to hearing spatial sound The most recent version of iOS lets you use your phone's FaceID sensor to scan both of your ears and make a personalised model that Atmos over the Airpod Pros use. I have no idea how good the results are - bit an interesting idea. https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/set-up-airpods-personalized-spatial-audio/ https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/set-up-airpods-personalized...

squeaky-clean 3y ago
Yeah Apple and Sony headphones that support Atmos require photo-scanning your ears. Bose and Logitech don't. In my experience, the Apple and Sony implementation of spatial audio sounds much more realistic than the Bose and Logitech ones I have tried. But those other 2 still work out okay. Especially for just gaming usage. Dolby also has a windows app that can "convert" any stereo headphones into Atmos. It also works better than plain stereo but not as good as ear scanning methods.