On the influence of headphone cup acoustics on individual pinna cues

Kiyan R, Preihs S, Peissig J. On the influence of headphone cup acoustics on individual pinna cues. In: AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games. Audio Engineering Society; 2026. Paper 10318. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23280

@inproceedings{Kiyan2026_23280,
  author = {Kiyan, Roman and Preihs, Stephan and Peissig, Jürgen},
  title = {{On the influence of headphone cup acoustics on individual pinna cues}},
  booktitle = {AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games},
  note = {Paper 10318},
  year = {2026},
  month = jun,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23280}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - On the influence of headphone cup acoustics on individual pinna cues
AU  - Kiyan, Roman
AU  - Preihs, Stephan
AU  - Peissig, Jürgen
T2  - AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games
M1  - Paper 10318
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23280
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - In head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), spectral cues due to the individual pinna geometry are known to contribute to elevation perception and externalization. The pinna component of an HRTF is referred to as a pinna-related transfer function (PRTF). Some headphone concepts aim to excite individual PRTF cues by placing the headphone transducer away from the traditional position on the interaural axis, e. g. tilted in front of the pinna. However, it is not clear to which extent the individual PRTF is preserved when the pinna is placed inside a headphone cup enclosed by a baffle and a cushion. In this study, multiple prototype setups successively approximating a headphone cup and allowing for variable transducer positions are analyzed using a set of silicone pinna replicas. PRTF perturbations are analyzed in near field measurements and the impact of headphone cup acoustics is discussed. Based on the observation that the perturbations are systematic, an equalization scheme restoring the free field PRTF based on the median of measurements with several pinnae is proposed.
ER  -