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<font size="+1"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Since the
list has been quiet -- I hope this is not inappropriate:<br>
<br>
I am unable to perceive a virtual soundstage when monitoring
stereo tracks through headphones. I wonder how common this is.<br>
I use them for tracking, but not for mixing or aesthetic
editing.<br>
I can form a subjective impression of the timbre of instruments,
distance from and characteristics of microphones, timbre of
room reflections, sometimes the size of the room, depending on
apparent reverb characteristics.<br>
But central signals always feel like they are in the center of
my head, and the subjective image extends outward from my head
like a figure of 8 microphone with lobes parallel to the
soundstage - mickey mouse ears. I have tried various HRTF
modifications with no significant help. I still perceive
central images in the center of my head, and the virtual
soundstage is never in front of me.<br>
<br>
I had assumed that this was my own neuro-cognitive 'deficiency',
like people who are unable to free view stereo image pairs
(which i do easily, wall eyed or cross eyed) or who can not in
fact perceive visual stereoscopic information at all and do not
see stereoscopically </font></font><font size="+1"><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><font size="+1"><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">(there is up to low
double digit prevalence of this in the gen pop)</font></font>.<br>
<br>
But a good friend who is a well respected designer of high
fidelity equipment has the same response.<br>
<br>
I have Stax, Etymotics, Sennheiser HD580, and AKG 240 'phones
and my 'soundstage' experience is the same through all of
them. Lots of detail, of variably contoured frequency response,
but no 'real' soundstage.<br>
Yet i see headphones commonly evaluated for "sound stage" and
people report hearing a virtual performance space in front of
them.<br>
<br>
I am also unable to perceive effective binaural imaging --
central images remain in the center of my head, although more
lateral content seems more peripheral, and only the lateral
virtual sources seem anywhere slightly forward of my head.<br>
<br>
I'm now old enough to have lost hearing above 14kHz, but i had
the same headphone experience when I was in my 20s and could
hear television CRT synch tones. I have no problem with stereo
localization with speaker playback, and can easily distinguish
the type of spatial clues provided by coincident microphone
techniques vs. those of near coincident (ORTF, NOS etc.) with
time of flight differences included. I remember (and saved) the
long discussion here about coincident vs. near coincident
techniques. I prefer near-coincident aesthetically if there is
any depth in the array of performers.<br>
</font></font><br>
<font size="+1"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><font
size="+1"><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I haven't
found a good discussion of this kind of 'deficiency' in
easily available neurological or audio sources. I checked a
few texts I own on audio perception (Berg "The Physics of
Sound", Butler "The Musician's Guide to Perception and
Cognition", McAdams ed. "Thinking in Sound - the cognitive
psychology of human audition" but found no relevant
discussion of headphone soundstage reproduction of stereo
music (although Butler comes with a CD of examples utilizing
headphone playback for examples of perceptual issues in tone
localization). The ENT literature I have access to is even
less relevant.<br>
<br>
I'm trying to find out if my deficiency is relatively
common, and other folks just report as headphone
'soundstage' a level of perception that I consider
inadequate to deserve that description,<br>
Can someone point me to a discussion of such variability in
stereo depth perception through headphones? I suppose the
people who create HRTFs have done a bunch of work on it. <br>
<br>
I can also note that in the past, i had a "Professional"
(HA!) Sony Walkman cassette deck that sounded reasonable
through headphones, but when used as a line in to a good
stereo system for speaker playback showed unacceptable and
easily perceived flutter. My ear/brain system was somehow
canceling or ignoring the flutter when listening through
headphones. <br>
<br>
If this is not appropriate to the list, the moderator can
just delete it. <br>
<br>
Considering how many people use earbuds for their music
listening these days (and mp3 files). I hope this issue
has been address technically somewhere.<br>
<br>
best wishes to all,<br>
<br>
eg<br>
</font></font></font></font>
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