Launch of myHRTF Stereo - New Lifelike Personalized 3D Sound for Headphones

[myHRTF]

Dear ASR members,

I’m happy to announce that we have launched the stereo version of our personalized speaker virtualization technology for selected headphones.

Many music fans, movie lovers and gamers want better sound but cannot setup powerful loudspeakers, let alone several of them. We enable headphones to sound virtually indistinguishable from a professional listening room equipped with state-of-the-art studio monitors in line with international standards.

We compute personalized binaural room impulse responses online, tailored to both the headphone model and each listener’s unique anatomy, referred to as personalized filters. They transform the “in-the-head” sound that is typical for headphones into a wide, deep soundstage in front of the listener, as is common with loudspeaker playback.

Until recently, achieving comparable results required individual measurements in a recording studio by means of special microphones.

Our personalized filters can be loaded into media players (e.g. Roon, JRiver MC, HQPlayer), EQ software (e.g. Equalizer APO) and plugins (e.g. Convology XT, Hang Loose Convolver). In addition to standard stereo, they allow sound reproduction with a wider listening angle (±45°) and crosstalk-free playback by mouse click. Many recordings sound way better with either of these settings.

For the market launch there is a 20% discount on myHRTF Stereo until the end of the year. You may try our solution free of charge here:
myHRTF Personalized Filter Designer

Drop me a private message in case you would like to hear your favorite songs filtered offline for testing.

Happy listening!

Philipp

 

[90sNintendoKid]

I would like to try this and I don't own any of the headphones on your list.

May I ask if you have a cheap headphone recommendation that works with your technology.

 

[myHRTF]

I would like to try this and I don't own any of the headphones on your list.

May I ask if you have a cheap headphone recommendation that works with your technology.

Provided that you are comfortable with in-ear monitors, I recommend to get a pair of Truthear Crinacle Zero. They deliver great sound by all standards at a bargain price. In addition, you can use them easily with any kind of portable music player or mobile phone since they don't require EQ (in case you don’t use them with our personalized filters). See details here:
Amir's test results

In case you don’t like in-ear monitors, I recommend to get a pair of Hifiman HE400se. Given the fact that these are full-size planar magnetic headphones, they feature an outstanding price-performance ratio and are very comfortable to wear. However, they do require EQ for best sound (in case you don’t use them with our personalized filters). See details here:
Amir's test results

It goes without saying that there are also other headphone models that provide similar price-performance ratio, and that this recommendation is purely based on facts proven by measurements (see links).

Just curious: which headphone model would you like us to support?

Happy listening,

Philipp

 

[Ntntnt]

Really very interested in this, but my headphones (Hifiman Arya Organic) aren't on the list - is it possible to buy filters for these?

 

[myHRTF]

Really very interested in this, but my headphones (Hifiman Arya Organic) aren't on the list - is it possible to buy filters for these?

Thank you, I have good news: new headphone models will be supported soon, and Arya Organic is one of them. I expect them to be uploaded in about two weeks.

 

[Ntntnt]

Thank you, I have good news: new headphone models will be supported soon, and Arya Organic is one of them. I expect them to be uploaded in about two weeks.

Fantastic thanks, I will be looking out for that

 

[demnis]

Hello! i've just seen this post and - due to the fact that i've been looking for something like this exactly, namely personalized spatial audio (that is not limited to an apple device & apple headphones) - this caught my interest quite strongly. I gave the demo on your website a shot using HD800s and did quite some fiddling around with different settings and also using other values apart from what i've measured to see how it would affect the final product. Using my measured values i've come very (!) close to something i would consider a very realistic subjective impression of space / spatial audio. I do have a couple of questions though.

What it in my opinion does not sound like though is a studio or a well treated, professional room. I do for sure know what a (very) good (professional / studio-) monitoring / mixing room with very good speakers in it sounds like and while definitely quite accurately conveying the sense of space, compared to said rooms it does sound very diffused and also quite reverby / decay-y and not as stereo-imaging-pinpointy if i may say so. It sounds a lot more like a very very live room with some kind of live sound source in it. I was wondering if this is something that is only due to demo limitations? Regarding virtual acoustics your website states as follows:

• approx. 270 ms (studio)*
• approx. 1.6 s (recital hall)
• approx. 1.9 s (concert hall)

What decay time is used in the online demo? Are those 3 values what the customization allows for in the paid product? (With it being convolution i would not think so, but-) What types of customization are there / is there any limit in regards to customization as to not "kill" the intended sound profile? Are there possibilities to include more demo options (e.g. different decay) on your website / include the possibility to preview own audio files? I'm having a hard time persuading myself to spend 200 bucks for something i can't properly test, especially given the fact this is non refundable.

TL;DR:
love the impression of space, demo sounds too live for my taste and not like a professional studio though. which options are there specifically to customize sound?


also these are my personal opinions. I would like to encourage everyone to try out the demo on the website on their own; having dialed in everything after measuring your head and ear the resulting sense of space really is very cool, especially if you've liked apple's personalized 3D audio but didn't like their audio hardware as much.

 

[myHRTF]

Hi demnis,

Thank you for your feedback!

We just came back from Tonmeistertagung, a pro audio conference and exhibition in Germany, and several said the same thing like you. Others really liked it like that. Obviously, it is a matter of taste and that would be backed by science: sound engineers prefer dryer room acoustics compared to recreational music listeners.

The room acoustics that you hear online is identical to the filters that you would get. It is in line with Recommendation ITU-R BS.1116-3 including reverberation time (270 ms). Nevertheless, it might be perceived as too lively due to a too high reflection density.

Our objective is to deliver optimum synthetic room acoustics that shouldn’t require any additional settings. However, it is possible to add a room with dry acoustics. We decided to work on that with priority now, it should be ready in a few weeks. I will update here as soon as it is available.

Drop me a mail or PM for preview of own music files, we can filter them offline if this is ok for you. I suggest we do this with the new room with dryer acoustics then.

 

[Bugal1998]

@myHRTF Looking forward to trying the on-line demo in the coming days.

Out of curiousity, what measurements would be needed to reproduce a specific room's acoustics and speaker frequency response? If possible it would be interesting to switch between different rooms.

Also, just confirming that there's no need to apply Amir's EQ to hit headphone frequency response targets if we're using the custom HRTF, correct?

 

[myHRTF]

Out of curiousity, what measurements would be needed to reproduce a specific room's acoustics and speaker frequency response? If possible it would be interesting to switch between different rooms.

The objective is an optimum synthetic room acoustics that soon can be switched between a lively or dry room acoustics. Lively is available online, dry will come soon.
Once room acoustics is flawless, rooms sound very similar and switching between rooms may be confusing for users since they would sound the same basically.
To reproduce a specific room and speaker setup you would require an individual calibration in that room with microphone capsules at the blocked entrance of the ear canals.

Also, just confirming that there's no need to apply Amir's EQ to hit headphone frequency response targets if we're using the custom HRTF, correct?

Correct, Amir's EQ should not be applied in addition to our filters.

 

[myHRTF]

What decay time is used in the online demo? Are those 3 values what the customization allows for in the paid product? (With it being convolution i would not think so, but-) What types of customization are there / is there any limit in regards to customization as to not "kill" the intended sound profile? Are there possibilities to include more demo options (e.g. different decay) on your website

The final product contains the room acoustics that is available online for demo, there is no difference between the sound and settings available online and the product. The only difference is that the online demo has mp3 kind of data compression.
One objective is to limit the settings to those that give a meaningful and intended sound difference. This way it is much more fun to choose between different settings for different recordings and music styles.

which options are there specifically to customize sound

Available now:
Speaker distance 1 m and 3 m
Speaker angle 30° and 45°
Room acoustics studio / recital hall / concert hall
Available soon:
Room acoustics lively and dry

The type of product (personalized binaural room impulse responses or pBRIR) doesn't allow detailed customization of the room acoustics since everything is baked into the pBRIR and cannot be influenced individually.

 

[Robbo99999]

Hello! i've just seen this post and - due to the fact that i've been looking for something like this exactly, namely personalized spatial audio (that is not limited to an apple device & apple headphones) - this caught my interest quite strongly. I gave the demo on your website a shot using HD800s and did quite some fiddling around with different settings and also using other values apart from what i've measured to see how it would affect the final product. Using my measured values i've come very (!) close to something i would consider a very realistic subjective impression of space / spatial audio. I do have a couple of questions though.

What it in my opinion does not sound like though is a studio or a well treated, professional room. I do for sure know what a (very) good (professional / studio-) monitoring / mixing room with very good speakers in it sounds like and while definitely quite accurately conveying the sense of space, compared to said rooms it does sound very diffused and also quite reverby / decay-y and not as stereo-imaging-pinpointy if i may say so. It sounds a lot more like a very very live room with some kind of live sound source in it. I was wondering if this is something that is only due to demo limitations? Regarding virtual acoustics your website states as follows:

• approx. 270 ms (studio)*
• approx. 1.6 s (recital hall)
• approx. 1.9 s (concert hall)

What decay time is used in the online demo? Are those 3 values what the customization allows for in the paid product? (With it being convolution i would not think so, but-) What types of customization are there / is there any limit in regards to customization as to not "kill" the intended sound profile? Are there possibilities to include more demo options (e.g. different decay) on your website / include the possibility to preview own audio files? I'm having a hard time persuading myself to spend 200 bucks for something i can't properly test, especially given the fact this is non refundable.

TL;DR:
love the impression of space, demo sounds too live for my taste and not like a professional studio though. which options are there specifically to customize sound?


also these are my personal opinions. I would like to encourage everyone to try out the demo on the website on their own; having dialed in everything after measuring your head and ear the resulting sense of space really is very cool, especially if you've liked apple's personalized 3D audio but didn't like their audio hardware as much.

My opinion was very similar when I tried this back in the Summer, but perhaps this will be fixed better by introduction of the Dry Room Acoustic option that has been talked about by the developer.

 

[Bugal1998]

Spent some time with the web demo this evening using two supported headphones, the Truthear Zero Red (with and without the inline resistor) and the HD800s. Some observations...

• I agree with the feedback that it's very diffuse.
• I didn't get a realistic sense of scale and spaciousness like in a real room; it almost had a boxy sound like listening to a recording made in room without the benefits of binaural recording and playback... While it definitely moved the apparent sound source forward and away, I never got the perception of being in a real room.
• The life and dynamics are removed from the music compared to bypassing the HRTF, and it doesn't seem to be limited to a volume difference.
• The two headphones don't sound the some (yes, I reset the designer for each headphone); Truthear had borderline overwhelming bass, while the HD800s had better envelopment (but still not great). Those are traits that seem to mirror the natural performance of the headphones.
• Most of the sound seemed to sit in lobes between 30 and 45 degrees left and right with poor center fill and and very little sense of sound out to 60-90 degrees and beyond (perhaps due to the musical selections?).

I'm skeptical that the issue is too lively of a room. I have a dedicated and professionally designed/treated listening room for recreational use with an RT60 of ~0.32s, and it has far more punch, definition, focus, and clarity than what I experienced with myHRTF. In my experience, listening in a good room adds liveliness and life to the music, it doesn't remove it, and it brings out a tremendous sense of space with quality recordings.

I don't intend the feedback to be overly negative, as the processing DID make a pronounced difference and certainly moved the experience in the direction of being in a live room, so I'm optimistic that the technology can deliver. Unfortunately, my experience this evening is that it misses the mark by a pretty wide margin compared to what I experience in my own space and compared to what I know is possible with binaural playback, which can be stunningly three dimensional and lifelike.

To reproduce a specific room and speaker setup you would require an individual calibration in that room with microphone capsules at the blocked entrance of the ear canals.

I do have a pair of in-ear binaural microphones (Sound Professionals SP-TFB-2), and I may try recording some music in my own listening room to evaluate that playback experience as a spatial reference; the challenge is that I assume there will be a double bass boost from the room gain and headphone response as well as a double roll-off of the high frequencies. But if my tests show promise, I would be interested in purchasing an individual calibration recorded in my room that I can then map to different headphones if you're open to such a service.

Also, please let me know if I can support your development efforts in anyway with in-room binaural recordings and I'll see what I can do. I would love to see this technology succeed.

 

[myHRTF]

Spent some time with the web demo this evening using two supported headphones, the Truthear Zero Red (with and without the inline resistor) and the HD800s. Some observations...

• I agree with the feedback that it's very diffuse.
• I didn't get a realistic sense of scale and spaciousness like in a real room; it almost had a boxy sound like listening to a recording made in room without the benefits of binaural recording and playback... While it definitely moved the apparent sound source forward and away, I never got the perception of being in a real room.
• The life and dynamics are removed from the music compared to bypassing the HRTF, and it doesn't seem to be limited to a volume difference.
• The two headphones don't sound the some (yes, I reset the designer for each headphone); Truthear had borderline overwhelming bass, while the HD800s had better envelopment (but still not great). Those are traits that seem to mirror the natural performance of the headphones.
• Most of the sound seemed to sit in lobes between 30 and 45 degrees left and right with poor center fill and and very little sense of sound out to 60-90 degrees and beyond (perhaps due to the musical selections?).

I'm skeptical that the issue is too lively of a room. I have a dedicated and professionally designed/treated listening room for recreational use with an RT60 of ~0.32s, and it has far more punch, definition, focus, and clarity than what I experienced with myHRTF. In my experience, listening in a good room adds liveliness and life to the music, it doesn't remove it, and it brings out a tremendous sense of space with quality recordings.

I don't intend the feedback to be overly negative, as the processing DID make a pronounced difference and certainly moved the experience in the direction of being in a live room, so I'm optimistic that the technology can deliver. Unfortunately, my experience this evening is that it misses the mark by a pretty wide margin compared to what I experience in my own space and compared to what I know is possible with binaural playback, which can be stunningly three dimensional and lifelike.



I do have a pair of in-ear binaural microphones (Sound Professionals SP-TFB-2), and I may try recording some music in my own listening room to evaluate that playback experience as a spatial reference; the challenge is that I assume there will be a double bass boost from the room gain and headphone response as well as a double roll-off of the high frequencies. But if my tests show promise, I would be interested in purchasing an individual calibration recorded in my room that I can then map to different headphones if you're open to such a service.

Also, please let me know if I can support your development efforts in anyway with in-room binaural recordings and I'll see what I can do. I would love to see this technology succeed.

Hi Bugal1998,

Thank you for your feedback!

I'm optimistic that some of your findings can be traced back to the amount of reflections being too high.

Thank you for offering support but our HRTF / BRIR / room acoustics is fully computed, no real room involved.

 

[donjoe0]

what measurements would be needed to reproduce a specific room's acoustics and speaker frequency response? If possible it would be interesting to switch between different rooms.

AFAIK all you need is an impulse response captured in each room, then you convolve that with anything you want, including commercial recordings + personal HRTF-based corrections (but not with sounds already modified by other room-based or room-like information). If you want to shuffle through a bunch of different real rooms, the one solution I know of is the Out Of Your Head software, but it's quite expensive if you ask me, and they don't have any personal HRTF matching solution included, I think they just use some generic HRTF for everyone.

 

[myHRTF]

Fantastic thanks, I will be looking out for that

Unfortunately, I need to ask you for a bit more patience. Reason is that we need to revise the amount / density of reflections in order to meet the request for dryer room acoustics in addition to the extension of the list of supported headphones.

I expect that we will upload the new version in two weeks from now, and Arya Organic will be supported then, too.
Thank you for your patience.