Submitted 5 hours ago by plankton@programming.dev to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
I like to listen to music with headphones while lying down. Some songs sound “wrong”, and I understand that is because the original recording was made for an upright head.
So if an instrument or voice was supposed to sound like it was in front of you, now it sounds like it’s coming from someone crawling across my ceiling.
It’s an insignificant and stupid problem so I don’t know what to search for lmao
On iOS with AirPods there’s spatial audio which does this.
Android and pixel buds to the same. I’m not sure if the buds are required to use it or just android.
leslie speakers ?
What if you rotate the head phones so the band is at the top?
I tried that right before making the pos, it doesn’t work
It has something to do with the timing of the sound going to each ear
You’re wearing headphones, the timing doesn’t change whether you’re upright or laying down. There’s nothing to fix, because this perceived problem is in your head
Many years ago soundcard drivers used to include things that could do this. Something like a “virtual surround sound” where you could place the speakers in a simulated spot. I don’t know if anyone has continued doing that on that front, but it can absolutely be done in a game engine. So if you’re willing to learn a little game development you could theoretically throw something together that could place virtual speakers in a 3d space.
You can look for something called headphone crossfeed, there are DSP plugins for a number of music players for this, you can use these plugins to simulate the stereo field of speakers using headphones by having some of the signal from each channel bleed into the other, since of course when you are listening to speakers, that’s what’s happening unless you have your speakers very close to your head.
Try to look for earphones with 3D head tracking. They work better for horizontal movement, but they might also help if you are lying down.
Some newer headphones, like the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro 4 that I just got, have 360 audio with head tracking. So, if you turn that on while you’re upright, then lay down, the audio should compensate for your movement.
Yeah, it’s a thing.
Was always a gimmicky part of speaker software back in the day.
Like, a page in setting was a picture of a generic room and you can drag and drop an icon for the picture to change how 3d sound was displayed.
So you could likely find something like that and co-opt it for headphones.
Search for something like “3d audio setup” or “positioning software”.
That being said, this isn’t a problem with how you’re processing sound. It’s more likely an inner ear thing, but it’s impossible to say if it’s a “problem” or just weird variation. So anything you do with the headphones is just going to compensate for it, not actually solve it.
It’s probably also weird watching TV or a screen from an angle either, fixing the inner ear thing would likely solve a lot of stuff for you, especially if you consider yourself clumsy
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 4 hours ago
The song is playing in stereo. Depending on the device you’re listening to you can change it to play in mono.
On a computer there’s an option called “balance” you can change the distribution of the sound so all of it will come out of the side that you’re not laying on. Some phones may have this option too, I don’t think android does.
real_squids@sopuli.xyz 4 hours ago
Android does have that, at least 10 and newer. It’s under accessibility options, near the bottom, same as mono audio