12/6/2023 0 Comments Kunstkopf binaural microphoneThe Neumann dummy head KU80 is another case of a binaural technology that was situated between these two poles. They further illustrate that dummy head technology was well situated between scientific laboratory studies and the development of commercial sound technologies. These early examples show the still limited knowledge of human spatial hearing. De Boer and Vermeulen compared the manikin with their spherical microphone, but they could not find any differences – which is, compared to today’s knowledge, rather surprising. They called their artificial head “Kunstkopf”, a term that was later also used in English. To investigate the role of the human head in spatial hearing they also built a manikin with microphones mounted in the ears. De Boer and Vermeulen assumed that spatial hearing was based on time and sound pressure differences between the two ear signals, but they still could not explain all localization phenomena. Without knowing the exact effect de Boer and Vermeulen tried to use the so called ‘cocktail party’ effect: the ability of human spatial hearing to focus auditory attention on a particular stimulus and filter out a range of other stimuli. Their concept was based on the observation that a person with impaired hearing could better follow a conversation between more than two people if the transmitted acoustic signals would contain some spatial information (de Boer/Vermeulen 1939). They first used a sphere with two microphones to construct a hearing aid. The “Localization Phenomenon” (Source: Hammer/Snow 1932).Īnother well known dummy head was built a few years later by de Boer and Vermeulen, engineers at the Philips Laboratory in Eindhoven. Snow noted that Oscar “will reproduce satisfactorily the intensity and frequency range of ordinary speech, music and most noises and gives a fair degree of localization.” However, one problem most listeners experienced was “that all sounds came from the rear.” This front-rear inversion was not at all surprising, as we will learn later, because the two microphones were mounted on Oscars’ cheeks and not inside his ears. Based on the observation that listening with two ears provides higher fidelity, Oscar was used in a series of tests with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra during winter/spring of 1931/32. Oscar was part of research efforts to improve the telephone system. *īell Labs are often credited for building the first dummy head: named Oscar. To address these issues I will distinguish three modes of hearing tests deployed in dummy head research: measurements, correlations, and consumption. I will investigate the main actors’ struggle for interpretative authority, attempts to conceptualise the phenomenon of human spatial hearing and efforts to improve binaural technology accordingly. In my paper, I will follow the KU80 dummy head through different research laboratories and broadcasting stations. However, dummy head technology was, and still is, not only a sound reproduction technology but also an important measuring instrument for studying human spatial hearing. This quest for facsimile sound reproduction could easily be read as one (tiny) episode in media history’s (apparent) progress towards greater definition, fidelity and truthfulness. Dummy head technology’s great promise is to store an entire sound event, including its spatial characteristics, enabling the listener to later (re-)locate sounds in space as if being in the original recording situation. The basic idea of dummy head technology or head-related stereophony is true-to-original reproduction of sound events.
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