Stereo on your head phones now with "binaural" plug for Winamp!

[glen]

http://members.liwest.at/hustbaer/

 

[glen]

Stereo really is not simply 2 channels of sound. It is the auditory illusion created in your brain from 2 channels of sound allowing you to locate a sound anywhere in front of you from left to right.

With speakers stereo works better because you hear both speakers in each ear.


With headphones you only hear the left channel in the left ear and right channel in the right ear. The result is that you can only hear things from the left, the right, or sort of inside your head.

So, if we take the left channel and add to it the right channel modified by the head shadow effect and do the same for the right channel, we can fake a binaural recording and get our stereo image back when using headphones.

 

[Jzero]

How the heck do you install a plugin for Winamp3? Weird...

 

[glen]

unzip the file, then put "DSP_HeadPlug.dll" into your winamp plugins directory.

 

[glen]

Remember, you use the plug only with head phones

 

[zsouthboy]

Uh... i guess i'll try it then... i didn't know i was missing something

 

[glen]

so how do folks like it?

 

[DamageInc]

That's pretty cool, man, I like it.

The audio sounds a little more "in front of you coming from both sides", rather than just from two speakers on your ears.

 

[glen]

anyone else?
You got to try it with head phones, then turn the plug in on and off and you will see what you are missing.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: DamageInc
That's pretty cool, man, I like it.

The audio sounds a little more "in front of you coming from both sides", rather than just from two speakers on your ears.

Definately. The only real downside is that it absolutely kills Winamp's CPU usage; 8% on average on a 2ghz TBred B vs 0% without. Anyone have any reccomended settings for it?

 

[stormbv]

Neat...I'm going to try this. Thanks.

 

[Crappopotamus]

hmm with my sennheiser 497s im not noticing too much difference. if i listen to a song for a while with it on, and turn it off, it seems to turn a little harsher? what am i supposed to be hearing...

 

[glen]

Originally posted by: Crappopotamus
hmm with my sennheiser 497s im not noticing too much difference. if i listen to a song for a while with it on, and turn it off, it seems to turn a little harsher? what am i supposed to be hearing...

Well, it is an auditory illusion.
When you hear similalr sounds in each ear, you braiin takes the time arrival, tonal, and volume differences to place the object. that is how you can tell where a sound is coming from.

Generally a stereo recording when played back on speakers will recreate this illusion.
Your right ear hears the direct sound from the right speaker, and
the sound form the left speaker,
at slightly lower volume,
tonally chaneged (your head blocks the left speaker from your right ear and chanegs it tonally slightly)
at a slight delay (the left speaker is slightly fartur away from your right ear than your left.)
repeat this for the other side

got it?



With headphones you only hear the left channel in the left ear and right channel in the right ear. The result is that you can only hear things from the left, the right, or sort of inside your head.

 

[AznMaverick]

should i just leave it at the default settings?

 

[0roo0roo]

sweet remember reading about this kinda stuff being used by those audiophile headphone users

 

[glen]

Originally posted by: AznMaverick
should i just leave it at the default settings?

Depends upon the shape of your ear, ear cannal, and how your brain is wired.
Default settings are a guess, you may be able to make it better for you.

 

[AznMaverick]

Originally posted by: glen

Originally posted by: AznMaverick
should i just leave it at the default settings?

Depends upon the shape of your ear, ear cannal, and how your brain is wired.
Default settings are a guess, you may be able to make it better for you.

sweet, thanks.

 

[0roo0roo]

why doesn't the ipod have this eh? bah

 

[screw3d]

There is definitely a difference..but I can't tell what is it!

 

[ddjkdg]

How can you get more than two DSP/Effect plugins running at the same time? I use TomSteady so everything plays at the same volume, couldn't live without it.

 

[dman]

I don't listen with headphones, so, I haven't tried this yet. That said, I can defintely hear left and right channels when I do listen with headphones. I get what's said above, and it makes sense... I am curious to listen but with all the reviews stating no big deal I'm in no hurry.

Some old songs, Beatles tunes for example, the L/R Tracks have some instruments on only one track. It's odd... If you listen to just one headphone you miss part of the music.
Might be interesting to listen to one of those.

 

[dighn]

yep definitely a difference. it sounds less in your head and more expanded. i dont use the headphones often inf ront of the computer though

 

[ViRGE]

After looking around a bit, a thought just occured to me: Windows XP already does this. Go to the sound control panel, and try a couple of settings(note that you need headphones to really see the difference). You'll notice that the sound cuts out quickly when going to/from the headphones, and it has a "full" sound compared to the speaker settings. Considering the difference, my best guess is that WinXP is already doing this sort of effect, which would explain why the difference from the plugin isn't so pronounced for me. Anyone else notice the same thing?

 

[stormbv]

Maybe I'm just a complete idiot, but how in the hell do you turn on a plug-in with Winamp3? Does it even work with Winamp3?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Does anyone have any explanation of what the settings affect? I'm playing around with this and can't quite get a feel for what each setting does.