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Impulcifer, Copy speaker sounds to headphones!

CREMA

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Jan 24, 2020
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*My English can be awkward using a translator. So, it may be difficult to answer the question. I'm sorry!

Impulcifer is a software that records the HRIR Response and allows you to listen to speakers on your headphones.

This is Free, but quite similar to the expensive Smyth Realiser A16, BACCH-HP technology.

https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer

If you have an ADC and a Binaural microphone, you can simply use Impulcifer.

Process HRIR to make it available to Hesuvi.

In my case, I created an HRIR response using a Motu M4, 48V converter and an MS-CB-900 Binaural microphone from Sound Professionals.

20210507_013112.jpg


Here's the picture. I put a cap on it.

Reliablely located in the External Audio Canal.

The headphones used are HD800S, and the speakers are B2031A with some internal tweaks. the Subwoofer is SVS PB2000PRO.

The headphone amplifier is a topping L30, and the output is connected by the RCA of Motu M4.


FL-left.png

FR-right.png


And this is my response.

I tried to make it similar to Speaker harman target, but I've boosted 20Hz more. (BASS!)

I used Dirac Room Correction, 2.2M between speakers and 2.1M away from listeners.

The room size used for the measurement is 7.8x6.4x4.8, controlled using sound absorption materials, but not perfect.

Speaker.PNG


Initial reflection is 18ms. Close to nearfield. RT60 is from 350ms to 400ms.

The environment with a lot of direct sound responded better to Impulcifer than the environment with a lot of reflective sound.

As for the listening experience...

First of all, it's almost the same in terms of Timbre.

The sound point stands out exactly in the front, and the speaker's spatiality is not perfect, but I can feel it well.

It can be a little unnatural because the sound doesn't change even if you move left and right.

Perhaps thanks to the characteristics of the headphones that can raise the sound freely and have low noise, depth and dynamics seem to be more vivid.

If you adjust the volume to the same as the speaker, you can hear almost the same sound, except for the feeling of the Sub Low Bass and the feeling of being surrounded.

I think the sound is more similar and accurate than I thought, but it's still close to simulation through headphones, so it's not completely the same as the speaker.

Nevertheless, I think it's well worth a try.

You can copy and use multiple spaces and speaker sounds, or try to virtualize 7 channels for use in games and movies.

If you use a webcam to fix the head position, I think you can try to blind test the speaker using HRIR.

Perhaps we can evaluate preferences by changing the HRIR of several speakers in one space. Mono or stereo, freely choosing.

Anyway, it must be a useful and excellent technique.

I hope many people experience it.

Thank you!
 
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Hi,

Sounds interesting, but why would you want to simulate a particular speaker sound instead of textbook neutrality?
 
Hi,

Sounds interesting, but why would you want to simulate a particular speaker sound instead of textbook neutrality?
Maybe you want to have an idea of what the speaker sounds like before buying, or just want to enjoy some nice dsp.
 
Maybe you want to have an idea of what the speaker sounds like before buying, or just want to enjoy some nice dsp.
Maybe, or maybe you just want to purchase the speaker with the best measurements.
 
You can copy and use multiple spaces and speaker sounds, or try to virtualize 7 channels for use in games and movies.
Would like to hear more about that.
 
Sounds interesting, but why would you want to simulate a particular speaker sound instead of textbook neutrality?

It's a catch 22. You need an actual set of speakers in order to measure your own HRTF in the first place.
 
Hi,

Sounds interesting, but why would you want to simulate a particular speaker sound instead of textbook neutrality?

There are many ways to make the sound of headphones, but a well-known method is to measure the sound of reference speakers through dummy heads.

However, dummy heads cannot completely mimic an individual's head, so the sound cannot be perfect.

No matter how sophisticated the headphones are, it's hard to expect them to match the HRTF of an individual.

For that reason, I wasn't satisfied at all when I heard the best known Sennesier HE1 headphones.

In addition, a typical headphone is quite useful when listening to binaural recording, but it is also difficult to reproduce the sound of a typical stereo music working with both speakers.

However, when you do that with your own ears, with headphones and speakers, everything becomes personalized and the higher the quality of your headphones and speakers, the better the outcome.

Reproduce the speaker's feeling and feel Spaciousness with proper reverberation or proper initial reflection.

The crosstalk and delay in both ears that occur as the speaker plays can also be delicately imitated.

Or you can make 'ideal' headphones by extracting only HRTF. (Your own headphone target!)

If possible, you can copy the sound of the studio where the music was produced.

It becomes more accurate and has more choice than the usual headphone environment.

That is why I prefer a fully personalised system.
 
Would like to hear more about that.

I think the expression was a little unclear. It is far from simulating various rooms and speakers.

Functions such as BACH-3DM using HRTF may be related to this, but Impulcifer is more like simply copying the response of a speaker placed in the room.

If you want to hear the sounds of multiple speaker systems (speakers in the listening room) on your headphones, you just need to take your good headphones, microphones, and audio interfaces and go to the speaker system to measure your HRIR.

It can be your own listening room, a friend's listening room, or a professional listening room.

If you are in a surround environment, you can connect HDMI or SPDIF and get and integrate HRIR responses from FL, FR,C,SR,SL,BR,BL speakers through the seven-channel measurement of the Impulcifer.

When you actually use it, it sounds like gaming headphones like Audeze Mobius from a variety of angles, but it sounds much more realistic and vivid.

You can enjoy movies and games more pleasantly.

And if you process these HRIRs and put them in HRIR folder in Hesuvi, you can switch each HRIR in real time and compare them.

With only one headphone, you can listen similarly to speakers placed in various listening rooms.

It's not a real speaker and listening space, so it can be less accurate. But the feeling of space and speakers is alive!
 
Or a 3D model/scan to feed to mesh2hrtf or similar. This is likely to get much easier with some of the sensors now getting into mainstream phones.

That sounds promising. The calculation from the 3D model should be solid, but how well do easily available method of "scanning" work?
 
If you are in a surround environment, you can connect HDMI or SPDIF and get and integrate HRIR responses from FL, FR,C,SR,SL,BR,BL speakers through the seven-channel measurement of the Impulcifer.
Ah. I did not see that as an explicit option. Similar to Smyth, no?
 
*My English can be awkward using a translator. So, it may be difficult to answer the question. I'm sorry!

Impulcifer is a software that records the HRIR Response and allows you to listen to speakers on your headphones.

This is Free, but quite similar to the expensive Smyth Realiser A16, BACCH-HP technology.

https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer

If you have an ADC and a Binaural microphone, you can simply use Impulcifer.

Process HRIR to make it available to Hesuvi.

In my case, I created an HRIR response using a Motu M4, 48V converter and an MS-CB-900 Binaural microphone from Sound Professionals.

View attachment 128321

Here's the picture. I put a cap on it.

Reliablely located in the External Audio Canal.

The headphones used are HD800S, and the speakers are B2031A with some internal tweaks.

View attachment 128322
View attachment 128323

And this is my response.

I tried to make it similar to Harman Target, but I boosted 20Hz. (BASS!)

I used Dirac Room Correction, 2.2M between speakers and 2.1M away from listeners.

The room size used for the measurement is 7.8x6.4x4.8, controlled using sound absorption materials, but not perfect.

View attachment 128327

Initial reflection is 18ms. Close to nearfield. RT60 is from 350ms to 400ms.

The environment with a lot of direct sound responded better to Impulcifer than the environment with a lot of reflective sound.

As for the listening experience...

First of all, it's almost the same in terms of Timbre.

The sound point stands out exactly in the front, and the speaker's spatiality is not perfect, but I can feel it well.

It can be a little unnatural because the sound doesn't change even if you move left and right.

Perhaps thanks to the characteristics of the headphones that can raise the sound freely and have low noise, depth and dynamics seem to be more vivid.

If you adjust the volume to the same as the speaker, you can hear almost the same sound, except for the feeling of the Sub Low Bass and the feeling of being surrounded.

I think the sound is more similar and accurate than I thought, but it's still close to simulation through headphones, so it's not completely the same as the speaker.

Nevertheless, I think it's well worth a try.

You can copy and use multiple spaces and speaker sounds, or try to virtualize 7 channels for use in games and movies.

If you use a webcam to fix the head position, I think you can try to blind the speaker using HRIR.

Perhaps we can evaluate preferences by changing the HRIR of several speakers in one space. Mono or stereo, freely choosing.

Anyway, it must be a useful and excellent technique.

I hope many people experience it.

Thank you!

It resembles the earlier version of the Smyth Realiser, the A8, in that it can do no more than 7.1 channels. It falls short there as well b/c it does not employ headtracking.

I personally think headtracking is one of the most important features on the Smyth machines. When I made my 16 channel capture of my LS 50s, I used Smyth's headtracking to get the angles correct, and it's crucial for creating the illusion of speakers playing in a room during listening as well.

The learning curve on Impulcifier looks even steeper than the A16. Certainly the price is right, and it would be a valid alternative to the Smyth and the Bacch if only it had headtracking. Could be done with off the shelf parts and wouldn't add too much to the cost, plus it could all be made to work with a pc, a set of binaural mics and a couple of sensors. Would add a ton of value, and be a bargain as well.
 
How much of non existing (audibly) reverb do you hear from those impulse responses? Jakko the Dev had to add some decay management algorithm to even cut out it, but I'm curious of your treatment zone. I'd like to try impulcifer but already invested in Acustica Sierra and you now after month of tweaking additional eqs and parameters their Amphions impulses even have better translation of my mixes through Hd650 than my b2031 in the treated room! But only disadvantage is I steel feel the excessive reverb while listening in those headphones setup and pretty worry about getting my mixes too dry then
 
Ah. I did not see that as an explicit option. Similar to Smyth, no?

Yes, I think it's similar.

it doesn't support the Height Channel like Smyth realiser A16, but it's enough for 7-channel computer audio.
 
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How much of non existing (audibly) reverb do you hear from those impulse responses? Jakko the Dev had to add some decay management algorithm to even cut out it, but I'm curious of your treatment zone. I'd like to try impulcifer but already invested in Acustica Sierra and you now after month of tweaking additional eqs and parameters their Amphions impulses even have better translation of my mixes through Hd650 than my b2031 in the treated room! But only disadvantage is I steel feel the excessive reverb while listening in those headphones setup and pretty worry about getting my mixes too dry then

In fact, it's almost hard to feel reverb in the HRIR file I'm using now.

Because my room is spacious and sound-absorbed, the effects of standing waves and reverberation are small. (240m3?)

IRS.PNGRT60.PNGDecay.PNG

So my HRIR is that the sound of the speaker is dominant, and the effect of space is slightly added.

So even if I don't handle the reverb, if I cut it to 100ms using the Decay parameter, it sounds the same (it feels dry if I lower the ms below that, but even FR is weird!).

The only time I can feel a little bit of reverb is the empty echo that occurs for a while when I pause the music.

Of course, if I widen the distance between the speakers and increase the listening distance, the amount of reverb increases enough to be felt while listening to music.

But I can't do critical listening in that environment. A lot of reflections cause me pain. In my HRIR, Reverb mixes with direct sound and naturally responds to the spatial information of the music.

And I prefer that kind of sound.

Also, they are personalized by my ear microphones and Response of both headphones and speakers have a practical basis.

Commercial speaker (studio) simulation plug-ins that are not fully personalized have many imperfections.

And depending on the option adjustment, there is a tendency to exaggerate reverberation or reflection.

I've tried many solutions, but virtual plug-ins were not enough to satisfy me.

However, I like the sound of Impulcifer, which copied the sound of the good listening room and excellent studio.

The results vary widely depending on the quality of speakers and headphones, but the possibility is amazing.

Think of headphones that mimic the sounds of the best studio in the world. The HRIR solution takes a step closer to that.
 
That sounds promising. The calculation from the 3D model should be solid, but how well do easily available method of "scanning" work?
Good question - I don't have direct experience. A search for '3d scanning app' will get a bunch of lists, reviews and guides, at least some of which look to produce good models. Whether they just look pretty, or are accurate enough to produce a good HRTF, is another matter. They do appear to be improving quickly though - it wasn't long ago that you needed a desktop computer and some skill using a photogrammetry application to get a similar result. The meshes for FABIAN are much denser around the ear, so extra care may be needed in that area. I don't know if that's just important for IEMs or whether over the ear headphones need it too.
 
Perhaps we can evaluate preferences by changing the HRIR of several speakers in one space. Mono or stereo, freely choosing.
In my opinion, this is an awesome application of this software; as a DIY speaker builder, I can take pretty good measurements, but what I really need is a controlled way to compare the sound of different designs and find a preference. Harman does this with a pneumatic speaker shuffler, but that's not an option open to us normal people, and there's lingering questions about whether the placement they use is really ideal for all speakers, so there's no really good way for someone like me to do this outside of a binaural recording/playback system. Another really good application would be to A/B compare acoustical treatments in room. Again, it's one of those things that a person really needs to have a controlled way to quick compare the sound of options in order to know if there is actually an improvement happening, but that would be impossible without a binaural recording/playback system.

Thank you for bringing attention to this.
 
*My English can be awkward using a translator. So, it may be difficult to answer the question. I'm sorry!

Impulcifer is a software that records the HRIR Response and allows you to listen to speakers on your headphones.

This is Free, but quite similar to the expensive Smyth Realiser A16, BACCH-HP technology.

https://github.com/jaakkopasanen/Impulcifer

If you have an ADC and a Binaural microphone, you can simply use Impulcifer.

Process HRIR to make it available to Hesuvi.

In my case, I created an HRIR response using a Motu M4, 48V converter and an MS-CB-900 Binaural microphone from Sound Professionals.

View attachment 128321

Here's the picture. I put a cap on it.

Reliablely located in the External Audio Canal.

The headphones used are HD800S, and the speakers are B2031A with some internal tweaks. the Subwoofer is SVS PB2000PRO.

The headphone amplifier is a topping L30, and the output is connected by the RCA of Motu M4.


View attachment 128322
View attachment 128323

And this is my response.

I tried to make it similar to Speaker harman target, but I've boosted 20Hz more. (BASS!)

I used Dirac Room Correction, 2.2M between speakers and 2.1M away from listeners.

The room size used for the measurement is 7.8x6.4x4.8, controlled using sound absorption materials, but not perfect.

View attachment 128327

Initial reflection is 18ms. Close to nearfield. RT60 is from 350ms to 400ms.

The environment with a lot of direct sound responded better to Impulcifer than the environment with a lot of reflective sound.

As for the listening experience...

First of all, it's almost the same in terms of Timbre.

The sound point stands out exactly in the front, and the speaker's spatiality is not perfect, but I can feel it well.

It can be a little unnatural because the sound doesn't change even if you move left and right.

Perhaps thanks to the characteristics of the headphones that can raise the sound freely and have low noise, depth and dynamics seem to be more vivid.

If you adjust the volume to the same as the speaker, you can hear almost the same sound, except for the feeling of the Sub Low Bass and the feeling of being surrounded.

I think the sound is more similar and accurate than I thought, but it's still close to simulation through headphones, so it's not completely the same as the speaker.

Nevertheless, I think it's well worth a try.

You can copy and use multiple spaces and speaker sounds, or try to virtualize 7 channels for use in games and movies.

If you use a webcam to fix the head position, I think you can try to blind test the speaker using HRIR.

Perhaps we can evaluate preferences by changing the HRIR of several speakers in one space. Mono or stereo, freely choosing.

Anyway, it must be a useful and excellent technique.

I hope many people experience it.

Thank you!
This has got to be something I try being a fan of virtual 7.1 surround sound for gaming, as well as having chosen my K702 as my favourite headphone for what I think are it's inherent abilities to sound more like speakers in terms of spatiality than my other headphones (Harman EQ'd though). Yeah, I'd like to try this, but got to get the motivation & time to do it and "scared" about investment in binaural microphones I'll need (and choosing the right pair), perhaps combined with my room not having any room treatment, these are my JBL 308p Mkii with just an Anechoic EQ based on Amir's measurement/review:
Normal Listening Level Distortion.jpg
 
Just an FYI for anyone interested in Impulcifer, I've been using it for over a year, and highly recommend it, if you are motivated. My hesitation has nothing to do with what it's capable of. For me it's beyond amazing, literally a dream come true. The illusion of extremely high quality speakers 8 ft in front of me is nothing short of stunning. Magical, really, next level. If you have the inclination for some DIY, have or can buy the modest equipment, can handle using command lines with numerous options, and the patience for some experimentation, the potential rewards are better than you imagine. Of course, HRTF's are personal, and I did probably a dozen measurement sessions, with several times that many trials of using different combinations of command options and EQ tweaks, until I hit the HRTF that totally changed how I listen to music. And it's much better than the sound of my speakers in my room. All the flaws have been fixed. I can't say it's the best sound you've heard, but it's the best sound I've heard in decades of searching for great sound.

"Think of headphones that mimic the sounds of the best studio in the world." - My experience exactly. I often feel like I'm sitting in the recording session, or in the 1st row of the concert. If others could hear what I'm hearing Impulcifer would be getting far more recognition.

My equipment:
Senn HD600 headphones
Sound Professionals MS-TFB-2 binaural mics
Zoom H2N interface binaural mics to laptop
Windows laptop
UMIK-1 mic for room recording
Gallo Strada mains and TR-3 subs
 
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It resembles the earlier version of the Smyth Realiser, the A8, in that it can do no more than 7.1 channels. It falls short there as well b/c it does not employ headtracking.

I personally think headtracking is one of the most important features on the Smyth machines. When I made my 16 channel capture of my LS 50s, I used Smyth's headtracking to get the angles correct, and it's crucial for creating the illusion of speakers playing in a room during listening as well.

The learning curve on Impulcifier looks even steeper than the A16. Certainly the price is right, and it would be a valid alternative to the Smyth and the Bacch if only it had headtracking. Could be done with off the shelf parts and wouldn't add too much to the cost, plus it could all be made to work with a pc, a set of binaural mics and a couple of sensors. Would add a ton of value, and be a bargain as well.
I haven't used a Smyth Realiser with headtracking, but can definitely say that the illusion of speakers in front of me with Impulcifer is exceedingly convincing. Of course if I turn my head the soundstage does shift, but I only use Impulcifer for stereo music listening, in my normal listening position. In that setup the results are astonishingly good, far better than I imagined it would be. If you have the inclination don't let a lack of headtracking keep you from trying Impulcifer.
 
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