JANUARY 2023
It was an extraordinary experience to watch and hear a rocket launch. The soundscape was simply overwhelming.
Brian Cremeans
Cape Canaveral, USA
The associated spectrogram looks like this.
What is 'binaural hearing'?
Humans usually perceive sounds with both ears, evaluating any noise – consciously and subconsciously – based on these two ear signals. The human brain processes and analyzes such binaural signals in a very sophisticated way, allowing us to locate, separate, and identify sound sources in space. It makes listening to and understanding concurrent talkers easier and increases intelligibility in noisy and reverberant conditions.
Therefore, working with binaural signals is essential as input for perceptual and instrumental evaluation. Using an artificial head allows us to pick up sounds like a human listener and to consider all features vital for binaural perception when processing, analyzing, and replaying these sounds.