Dolby headphone demos

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2006/11/18/Dolby_Headphone_demos/1.html

 

I can't test this out I have Zalman theater 6 headphones, so they have surround sound built in. Oh well 6 speakers ***

 

It would be nice to have a before and after for this, it just sounds like stereo to me.

 

sounds very artifical and over the top on my senhiser HD650's although a slightly toned down version in games would sound pretty good.

 

On my ****** earphones it sounds pretty good.
Bit like listening to holographic sound, but not as holographic...

 

Yep, doesn't sound that special to me either.

 

Agreed.

Didn't really sound like the noise was behind me either...more like very wide stereo.

 

I agree... The train sounds well dodge.. The forrest one was better.. I felt as if the sound was more central between my ears than comming from behind me...

There was a recording of a guy walking around a room, was on a forum here before that was far more convincing..

 

this technique of recording sound is really old, my father done it at uni with his friends. This was 38 years ago!

basically they hung a pair of headphones on a tripod then plug the head phone jack into a power amp to boost the singal, then recorded the single coming out of the amp.

The quality of the sound was low as it was using a pair of headphones in reverse!

But it did give the listener (via headphones) the ability to work out where the sound is coming from. if the listen the foot steps are coming up at you.

My father and friend copied this technique, they did not invent it.
(so no slating them ok)

 

I'm pretty sure the effect would actually be quite pleasant if it wasn't for the "tinny" audio artifacts. Those demo's have obviously been compressed and that's most likely damaged the frequencies that form the effect...

Out of the three though I felt "Forest" had the best sense of space and atmosphere but it's been already said, it's just stereo.

 

no this is different then that. this is an actual surround mixed audio track that is then modified to match the channeling of the ear. the ear is acoustically designed to add certain pitches depending on where the sound is coming from. to mimic this they modify the sounds that would be on the back L/R and back Center channel and the front R/L and Front Center. it does sound very artificial, but thats because it is. but because surround headphones generally aren't all that good, i like this alternative. i have a really good set of studio headphones that i use for Audio. but with the CMSS-3D Headphone effect thats on the X-Fi card i have, i can hop into a game and hear exactly what direction the sound is coming from and not bug the hell out of my neighbors with middle-eastern yells, artillery fire, and tanks when i'm playing BF2.

the reason it wasn't as easy to make out in these is because there is no reference. just like the fact that you don't taste as well with your nose plugged. without the visual reference in those that were still shots it wasn't as easy to help yourself believe it was surround. the barn one however i believe was the easiest to hear it in. the town and the jungle not so much, and the train was overcompensated.

without a real time processing of the sound, i cant really comp[are it to the job the CMSS-3D does on my X-Fi. but it is dolby, so i imagine they will do well with it.

 

just sounded like normal stereo to me, sound going from right to left on the train demo

 

Exactly.

 

uh... yah. Sounds just like stereo.

It was also quite silly to have the "hollywoodized" version of lightning in that barn video, as in having the sound and the lightning que at the same time. Thats an oversight when you are doing a tech demo.

 

i think there was a bit of mental block involved... in the town scene i closed my eyes to listen better and for a second when that train went i actually felt like i was hearing it coming from behind me and felt so real i almost had the reaction to glance behind me. the scenes like one in the barn just felt to much like they were made by some engineer and not actually recorded.

 

Another vote for wide stereo. Though I think my use of canalphones rather than normal headphones might be throwing it off.

 

These demos weren't very impressive. The demos at the Dolby site (click on "Experience this technology on your PC now", then see the "Flash demo") are much more indicative of what it can do.

After going through the demos on the Dolby site again, it seems that the effect is much more pronounced when there is only one channel of sound (or perhaps two channels). In a normal scene, like even the Trailer demo on the Dolby site, the effect doesn't really have much of an impact.

 

for me the effect is very faint..... even in the dobly site, or my headphones are crab.
IMO this might be better exemplified with a tech demo like .kkreiger.

 

Hmm... did you see both the Flash demo and the Super Speed (or whatever it was called ) demo? The Flash demo had a pronounced effect; the other one keeps switching between Dolby Headphone and regular Stereo, with a bar at the top showing you which one is active, so you can compare the two. The Dolby Headphone version seems much fuller. When it switches back to Stereo afterwards, the sound is very flat (at least subjectively).

 

http://thenicetech.com/Binaural Goodness.mp3