https://www.head-fi.org/threads/anyone-into-crossfeed.961533/post-18068536 (post #78) is a free way to get a taste minus the head-tracking; for clarity, I prefer trying to simulate the anechoic sound with outdoor measurements and upmix in further than at-home practical first reflections later if I like, though I admit the greatest cost on my end was the overkill use of Genelec 8341A speakers; I've nonetheless had fantastic results this way. From what I remember, for PRIR capture, the Smyth-Realiser system uses a lot less samples than the
https://www.earfish.eu/ method of HRTF capture, whereby I haven't had a chance to compare the efficacy of their interpolation method compared to the Earfish method that also captures granular elevation samples.
As an aside, I figured to take a closer listen at playing pink noise equally through both channels and feeding this into a volume panner in Reaper, comparing the HE1000se, Arya Stealth, Meze Elite, ATH-M50xBT, and Jabra Elite 85h, the latter two unbalanced and the rest balanced.
- I generally had the feeling that the latter three gave me more sense of a vaguely frontal pan that I would almost call "good enough imaging" while the HiFiMans had things closer to my forehead if not slightly behind it, though later in the listening session, I started perceiving it more forward like with the ATH-M50xBT's treble. In all cases, the treble tended to image a bit high around forehead level while the midrange noise bands were more level.
- With a pan law of 4 dB, which I've found maintains the volume best for panning with my speaker simulation DSP, the non-DSP pans while having the treble move left and right had the general feeling of lobing in volume level between the center and the front left and front right. The lower frequency noise bands also tended to lag behind and stay closer to the center with the highest frequencies being the most panned--consider that for traditional crossfeed like with https://bs2b.sourceforge.net/, I had found that it struggled more with pushing the higher-frequency components of far-panned sources forward than their lower-frequency components.
- At the transition between 80% and 100% pan in either direction, I start to feel a kind of "quantum tunneling and superposition effect" with volume levels jumping between the upper front left or right of my head to being right in the middle of the drivers with 95% to 100% finally presenting the jarring void of having noise playing only in one ear.
- With my personalized HRTF rendering DSP turned on, the pink noise coherently images from around one point cleanly along a line in front of me, moving left and right between the virtual speakers with a more clear sense of "looking at" the sound source, no frequency bands imaging high or low (in most cases) or leading or lagging, more coherent than anything I've heard with stock headphones. There is no jarring transition between 95% and 100% pan.
In short, when you hear proper coherent imaging free of room reflections, there's no turning back, and while I in this pink noise pan test have a chance of noticing some slight differences in presentation in new headphones I may encounter, for my ears, they would all most likely present imaging
errors that I would want to correct such that comfort, distortion, and EQability would be my priority.