43.2M views · May 5, 2007 · 4:41 · 4 HN recommenders · 13 mentions · discussed 2013–2024
A binaural audio demo, the 'Virtual Barber Shop', that places a barber moving around your head. It works best with headphones and closed eyes.
Why Hacker News points people here: It is the classic demo HN people point to for showing positional 3D audio working on ordinary headphones.
“try this 3d demo. And don't forget to close your eyes.”HN comment, 2014
“try this 3d demo. And don't forget to close your eyes.”
3D audio demo to try on ordinary stereo headphones.
60 Virtual speakers What does that even mean? It sounds like clever marketing talk. I bet they have just regular stereo and software. Here, take a pair of good stereo headphones and try this 3d demo. And don't forget to close your eyes. Virtual barber shop: this video
“recording that works with the cheapest of headphones”
Classic recording where you hear someone moving around, on cheap headphones.
Here's a classic "OMG I can hear him moving around" recording that works with the cheapest of headphones: this video Most of the audio experience quality comes out of the production phase, and artists can put as much or little effort into that as possible and consider several mediums of listening (headphones, TV, surround, concert, vinyl) and make tradeoffs for the medium's particular experience. I don't know about double blind trials but people do tests on their own. It's further complicated though because the hardware you use could be optimized for certain types of music, e.g. have a read through link
“Listen to this with headphones”
Shows how well sound sources can be located from a recording.
> I wonder how much people can see in the dark through listening to sound sources by moving their heads for motion parallax. Listen to this with headphones: this video It’s amazing how much you can geolocate just in even a recording.
“Give this a try with any normal headphone”
Demo of binaural audio adding a dimension to sound.
Because it adds another dimension to the sound you're experiencing and gives you a whole new appreciation for the medium. This combined with binaural audio should be the future of audio storytelling. Give this a try with any normal headphone: this video
“I remember how much I was wowed by the binaural virtual barbershop[1]”
Classic binaural demo of positional audio over headphones.
I like this! A great demo of new standards working in browsers. As far as 3D audio goes it would be amazing to see an example which delayed audio to one ear based on the different distances from each ear to the source of the sound. This example just pans the audio - which is still a great effect, but I remember how much I was wowed by the binaural virtual barbershop[1] [1]: this video
Positional audio demo in a discussion of hardware audio processing.
Dedicated soundcard, and drivers with direct access to hardware have nothing to do with audio professionals. It is about processors on the card (that back then had about half of the amount of transistors that the PC main CPU had, so they could pack quite a punch in processing power) that could do realtime audio calculations. I am not talking just about "effects" from the audio professional sense, I am talking about realtime creation of audio according to the scene geometry and stuff happening, for example A3D could calculate actual reflections, not just simulated reverb/echo. If you want to see an example of this in real life: go near a window that has a barrier in front of it of some kind, in a relatively enclosed space. Then wait for some noise to happen outside, in the direction opposite to the window. Suppose you was facing "forward", the window (and the wall beyond it) is to your left. Then an airplane passes by your right. The naive way to do it (that is what most games today do without a soundcard to do it for them), is play sound from the right speaker (be it in a 5.1 or in the right speaker of a headphone), or to simulate it is "outside", play it muffled. The correct way to do it, is play from the left, because it reflected on the wall, and came inside through the window. Vortex soundcards for example, made by Aureal, could calculate that (back then, only one reflection, so sequences of reflections that could go around corners didn't worked, but back then was 1996, t
“For more convincing positional audio you can use a HRTF;”
Example of convincing positional audio using HRTF.
It's a somewhat limited approach. For more convincing positional audio you can use a HRTF; link Example: this video
“It's been 14 years since the last state of the art 3D audio experience”
Cited as state of the art 3D audio from years ago.
It's been 14 years since the last state of the art 3D audio experience: this video has anybody done as good since then ? What's this Cetera algorithm ?
“the effect on my run-of-the-mill earbuds is still incredible”
Shows spatial effect working on ordinary earbuds without head tracking.
Does anyone happen to know of a non-headphone-specific solution for this, which actually does a good job? It doesn't need to work when I move my head, neither does the Virtual Barbershop[1] and yet the effect on my run-of-the-mill earbuds is still incredible. I'm open to little hardware boxes, software that modifies my computer's audio as it plays, a filter for ffmpeg, etc, as long as I can use whatever headphones I want and the spatial effect is high quality. 1: this video
“The typical demo for this functionality is”
Typical demo of HRTF-based positional audio over headphones.
Headphones with a proper HRTF preserve that perfectly fine better than any actual speaker setup ever can. The typical demo for this functionality is this video
“sounds incredible on my cheap headphones”
Demo that sounds incredible on cheap headphones.
For real enthusiasts, also X.Y.Z, adding ceiling/bounce speakers for vertical spatial audio. The real "stuck so far behind" that I don't get is why we use speaker arrays at all -- instead of binaural stereo tech. That virtual haircut demo, apparently from the 90s,[0] sounds incredible on my cheap headphones, yet the technology seems to have gone nowhere since. Is there even spatial audio in VR setups? If the difficulty is in simulating the head/ears, then existing spatial recordings can at least be converted using a binaural microphone in a surround sound setup, no? Though, I guess with headphones any visceral sensation of bass is still lost, so you'd need to keep the subwoofer or a seat shaker. 0 this video
“I tested them all with this video -”
Used to test directional audio on headsets.
Surround sound was unnecessary. As long as you had stereo headphones you were fine. I had cheap headphones, expensive headphones and even won headphones at LAN events. Directional audio was never an issue on any headset I'd played with. I tested them all with this video - this video The only headphone issue I had in my decades of playing CS were with open ear headphones (Sennheiser HD555) that reduced the punchiness of bass and made footsteps more difficult to hear in CSS which was a terrible game with terrible audio.
“(Use headphones and close your eyes.)”
Binaural barbershop demo recalled in a stereo discussion.
Reading this for some reason reminded me of the Virtual Barber Shop: this video (Use headphones and close your eyes.)
