GOOD@ACC (05/30/85)
From: Greg Goodknight <GOOD@ACC> From AXLER%Upenn: >...[ZBS Studios] latest project: a series of audiophile-quality >real-time cassette recordings of various stories, using a binaural >system that provides near-perfect 3-d sound when played back through >headphones (no, it won't work on speakers, alas, due to some >psychological phenomena that I don't really comprehend). I think it is much more a physical/physiological phenomena than psychological. A couple of years ago a VP at Mattel Electronics handed me a cassette tape produced by an Italian firm demonstrating their "Holophonic System" capabilities ( the aural equivalent of holograpic, no doubt). There was no technical description of their equipment, but the photograph on the cassette liner showed a model of a human head ( sans nose or ears ) swathed in some fabric. I suspect this is what ZBS Studios is using. We apparently sense sound directionality by some very impressive mental signal processing. A sound made in front, off to the right, will hit the right ear first, then phase shifted and attenuated and hits the left ear. Sound is also propagated at a differing velosities and attenuations in the hard and soft tissue. This is all heard, and we (almost) instantaneously know where it came from. I think the "Holophonic System" is a fairly accurate sonic model of the human head, with small microphones placed where the eardrums should be, a hard interior and soft exterior. The demo tape is a real gas. The effects on the tape include: A carbonated beverage poured INSIDE your head (listening to this after drinking a bottle of Old Tennis Shoes is the earthly equivalent to the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster); A woman approaches from one side saying (in Italian) "I'm getting closer" until she is breathing in your ear (it is so realistic that you can feel her breath on your neck {definately a psychological effect}), moves to your other ear and starts to say "I'm moving away" as she does so. A haircut at an Italian barber shop, with a blow dry (the best effects of all). Incidentally, the effect does degrade as the speakers (I used a set of speakers that plug into a walkman) move away from your ears (4 inches was about the max.) The sound that hits one ear has to be much greater than the sound traveling from the other ear's speaker or the phase info gets destroyed. ------