Re: So you think you can do a decent trackstand?

On 2007-11-17, carlfogel@xxxxxxxxxxx <carlfogel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 15:00:50 +0100, Jasper Janssen
<jasper@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]
Not actually true. The shape of our ears greatly influences our hearing in
open air. Not so much when you put on headphones (which eliminate those
influences) and start testing for hearing deficiencies, of course, but the
outer ears are for directionality and a certain amount of
preamplification.

Jasper

Dear Jasper,

Can you link to a picture of a human ear and explain in more detail
how the shape does anything useful from the point of view of an
audiologist?

After all, the tiny functional opening is rather well-shielded from
most of the bizarre and convoluted structure.

Primate ears have evolved in the direction of ornamentation, useful in
itself for social purposes, but not their original function--much like
antlers in deer, which have moved away from the original purpose of
defense to a social function.

I think the ear's odd shape is partly what gives it different frequency
responses in different directions. This different frequency response is
supposed to be used by the brain to determine the directions sounds are
coming from.

It can be measured (for a "standard" ear) and built into sound
processing software used in PC sound cards to simulate sounds coming
from different directions. It's called "HRTF":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function

Of course the first things you do if you're trying to simulate a sound
from a particular direction is just apply a volume difference between
the two loudspeakers. For a better effect, you also apply the correct
time delay. HRTF is the icing on the cake, although I have never found
it works very well on me. YMMV.
.

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