Comment on Every dam time
gens@programming.dev 19 hours agoStereo headphones are surround sound. It’s how ears work. You percieve position by how late the sound comes to one ear compared to the other. There is a bit more, but I don’t want to write on the phone more. Google HRTF for that part.
Ryktes@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Most basic stereo headphones are straight dual channel and have the same issues as listening through laptop or tv speakers. I’m talking about the ones that actually use multi-channel signal to simulate a 5.1 or 7.1 environment.
gens@programming.dev 15 hours ago
Not really. It’s up to the software, soundcard, and/or recording.
Stereo headphones are surround. The reason laptop speakers are not is because they are in front of you. Headphones are one for each ear, separate.
Our brain is very sensitive to phase difference between sound in either ear. That is how we can tell sound direction. It’s like triangulation, except the third variable is the shape of our ears (is it comming from the front or the back, see HRTF again).
There is no such thing as surround headphones. There can not even be such a thing. All headphones are surround. It’s either sound card drivers, software in the chain, or just marketing. Get “normal” headphones and check out some directional audio videos on youtube.
Openal is an audio library used by some older games and they patched HRTF into it to make it sound even more surround.
Decent headphones that are comfortable are better then even more expensive full room setups, although just for one person.