How many speakers are optimal?

8,192 and 128 subs

I'm able to hear if a sound is coming from something in front of me or something behind me. It's quite useful walking around in a city. If you're unable to hear where a sound is coming from then two speakers may be too much since you're probably deaf.

5.1 or stereo headphones. Anything more is just redundant.

>stereo headphones
>not true surround

Attached: 1542508473397.jpg (600x840, 162K)

About 3.50

You only have two audibles frequency sensors, and they don't give a shit about the angle the waves come in at
Your brain determines angle and distance based on how it sounds, not how it reached your diaphragm, the shape of your ear, surrounding surfaces, etc, change how things sound, and the brain learns to correlate these differences with source positions
Tldr: you can simulate positional audio with 2 speakers

set your audio output to stereo or put on headphones
watch these videos with eyes closed
youtube.com/watch?v=s3eOuqAmLAA
youtube.com/watch?v=4BltHXngvlk
then realize you only have two ears, not five point one or more

>Anything more than stereo in headphones
That is absolutely one of those retarded memes I have heard.

Then you haven't heard it.

Audio spacialization, unless done by a pro or some advanced autism, that is, having a room specially made for it, isn't worth it. You're not gonna get close to an accurate representation
>but it's so cool, I can hear explosions behind me
If you're not gonna do it right, it's not worth doing at all, you're never gonna get optimal sound in your bedroom or living room, so the whole thing is a useless exercise. Just buy some decent stereo headphones and live your life.

Attached: 323563628.png (266x280, 111K)

There is a reason you only find that feature in gaymurr headphones. Because it's a useless gimmick, where they can chuck 8 of the shittiest tiny speakers in the headphones and sell it with a 3000% markup.
If was anything other than pure gimmick, audiophile-tier shit would have picked it up too.

You haven't proven me wrong.

You can, but all the magic would be gone as soon as you move your head. So if you have your head fixed with a belt to your chair you can use stereo, if not, you need more speakers.

Then i'll do it.
smaller drivers = lower quality sound/less range.

Just because it isn’t optimal doesn’t mean it’s not better or fun. Unless you’re physically at the studio where the audio was made you’ll never hear how it’s “supposed” to sound

>driver size
>in headphones
Does it hurt being this retarded?

>being so alone you set up your speakers so that only one seat in the room can hear the 3D™ effect.

Attached: 116856a.jpg (300x240, 16K)

Yeah for sure drive size doesn't matter at all.

Yikes.

How does one offset size loss with more drivers?

>letting other people into your audio haven

>he doesn't have a 21.4 setup

why even bother seriously

In movies, it doesn't matter since you can't see anything around you anyway
In games, you move your 'head' in the game, which works fine
In 'experiences', you'd be using a vr hwadset, which adjusts the audio to suit

>Yikes.
What is surface area?

>You'll spend thousands and barely replicate a good set of headphones.
Top kek

Hey dumdum, it's not about surface area, a smaller driver will have less frequency range than a larger one. Having 8 shitty speakers makes the same shitty sound.

5 is a good start for surround. Unfortunately, most music is only mixed for 2. Sharply diminishing returns on envelopment beyond 5. Quality should focus on the LCR since these are the most important speakers.
Subwoofers are arranged to ensure maximally even coverage of bass in the room. Unless you want to start piling subs on the ceiling or on a rack, 4 works best, one per corner. This is assuming a closed off and rectangular room.

Phantom center is not stable over positions. Only a few places can be used. Real center fixes it in place, expanding the sweet spot and making it more resilient to room conditions.

Headphone listening is not at all comparable to speaker listening. They are complementary unless you are destitute.

Hey captain retard, multiple drivers can encompass multiple frequency ranges. It's almost as if that's exactly what audio enthusiasts have been doing for decades.

Holy shit, you are stupid. Small speakers can't magically be tuned to certain ranges! And even if they could, surround sound speakers are designed to emulate surround systems, so your magically tuned speakers would only be able to produce certain frequencies from a set direction. How are you this stupid?

>a smaller driver will have less frequency range than a larger one
Speakers are limited in bandwidth because they have to fill a large room. A larger driver will require careful management of modal resonances at high frequencies, a small driver cannot make the large excursions to fill a room with bass. The cone drivers also turn directional at high frequencies compared to their size, which the main reason why an equalized flat woofer is still of limited use.
Headphone pressurize a small chamber, so they make the most use of the pressure chamber effect. This boosts bass output and decreases cone excursion required, enabling a small driver to reasonably work in the low end. In practice, they are not too small, so the earpads and frame are often shaped so the treble beaming of the driver is pointed at the pinna.

>hurr durr I don't understand tuning speakers
Speaker depth allows for lower or higher frequencies.

>thread about audio
>filled with people who think they know everything and don't know shit
What is it about audio that attracts these people?

You can't place things next to each other like with video, that is why.

I wasn't talking about actual speakers vs headphones, I was talking about the difference between a large diameter stereo headphones vs surround sound speakers which use the same principle you mentions but with many tiny diameter speakers. They just can't produce the same sound quality to make the faux surround effect worth it.

surround sound headphones*

youtube.com/watch?v=cPzy9E8FqRI

>Doesn't know about line array speakers

You only have two ears.

We were discussing surround sound headphones. Line array is completely unrelated.

>tfw you can't comprehend any type of 3D audio or bilateral hearing because you're deaf in 1 ear

Assuming you have two eyes, positional audio is like depth perception, just another detectable 'dimension' which you'll just have to trust is a thing

Genuinely a pain in the ass to measure headphones. Pinnae are too rigid to well fit headphones, small defects in shaping the pinna, the test fixture lacks human skull contours, eardrum impedance not well defined above 10kHz, and so on.
For a speaker, you take it out to an open field and get a mic. Then, rotate the speaker to get the directional response. One day someone will figure out how to make the multipole expansion of the loudspeaker easy, and we can all just take quick high-resolution spatial measurements in our living rooms.

How they lose their heads over electronics. The generation of speaker audiophiles is old and dying out, but a new generation that knows about headphones is being raised to take their place.

Such a fucking interesting thread. Nobody here seems to have any idea what they're talking about.

The ideal number of speakers is: one per virtual object emitting audio. A voice, a harmonic-rich instrument, fork scraping on plate; anything emitting frequencies in the range we're sensitive to envelope phase changes (roughly 1.5kHz to 7kHz) needs it's own source.

We can detect a virtual source's position just fine when it's between two speakers, but position is not the only quality we need. Any time you pan sound to a phantom position (between two or more speakers) it's robbed of "proximity", which is the sensation that a source is near (right in your ears like ASMR) or further away. The stereo triangle is a gimmick from the '60s

(All this assumes the speaker paired to the source is up to the task (appropriate directivity, lack of diffraction, so on))

Headphones mimicking surround sound setups is sad, like someone filming their computer screen with their phone. It'll get the point across, but jesus. Binaural sound is the ideal. Supra-aural phones (like koss porta-pros) are ideal for binaural sound, as long as they're equalized to your personal HRTF.
The infrastructure to do this painlessly does not exist yet so the pool of good binaural recordings is a tiny niche. It could have been mainstream since the mid 2000s.
This is why headphone tech is stuck in the late '70s. We had to wait for technology to catch up, but once it did no one bothered to pick up the ball again except for Harman and a handful of independent scientists. What a fucking bummer.

>You only have two audibles frequency sensors, and they don't give a shit about the angle the waves come in at / the shape of your ear
That's right, son, ears have all those weird, unaesthetic folds because--like--god hates us or something. Please, go on.

Attached: 1532342892973.gif (500x500, 1.49M)

At least you only have to buy 0.5 headphones.

it's Jow Forums - consumer electronics and open source software mind you, not Jow Forums - science and audiophiles. you're casting pearls

>and open source software

Attached: 1505123038460s.jpg (250x166, 4K)

42

If it makes you sad that my post is out of place, maybe you could just ...engage with it instead of reacting with some post-ironic bs. If you like what I said, say so. If you want to gatekeep, get your balls out.

It's not just about having speakers for more angles, it's about the split of audio in the mix. With a 5.1 set up the film can have lighter rear audio sounds that you'll actually pick up when listening, if you're mixed down to a 2 channel set up those rear light sounds will likely get drowned out by the louder parts of the front mix. So yes you can get 3D sound from a binural speaker set up but you're going to lose individual sound definition, especially on the quieter parts of the mix, coming mixed down from a 5.1 source.

At around 5 grand you get things that surpass a headphone setup of the same cost. Headphones are far superior at the $1,000 mark, but if you're already willing to spend thousands, just get a good 2.1 system unless you want to keep your noise to yourself.

Binaural is not stereo. They're both recorded as 2 channels -- that's where the similarity ends.
5.1 to stereo is a downmix, while 5.1 to binaural is an upmix (as 5.1 is missing information).

The guy you're responding to has very little idea what he's talking about.

all of them.

2
any audio "setup" more elaborate than a pair of KZ ZS6 or Tin T2 with nice foam tips is pathetic
you can get a DAC if your computer has a shitty output though

> 5 grand
Bullshit. Audio doesn't have price points like you're describing, it doesn't operate like the rest of technology. Starting with a set money amount (and assuming companies compete with each other to provide best value-for-money) is the fastest way to get fleeced.
You can spend $100,000 on (what turns out to be) junk, or spend $300 for 95% of what the state of the art can produce. I'm struggling to think of what imaginary price point $5k represents.

Headphones can never be flat-out superior across the board, regardless of price. Same for speakers. Fed stereo information, they have capabilities the other cannot reproduce, no matter how much money you throw at them. Combine the best qualities of both and you're still at the base of the mountain -- this imaginary blend isn't nirvana, it's a squalid compromise orbiting stereo's limitations.

2, one for each ear.

two really good speakers that go to 35-40hz

mm.... no, since a knowledgeable buyer can put together something for 1k that is superior to nearly all headphones

the 5k tier, to a knowledgeable buyer, gets 99% to the top of the mountain; all that other stuff you said is based on your preferences which may be based on illusion

>Supra-aural phones
Been reading Griesinger?

An infinite amount.