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Journal Article

Improving Headphone Listening Comfort

Authors: Bauer, Benjamin B.

Journal of the Audio Engineering Society · Volume 13 · Issue 4 · pp. 300–302 · October 1965

Abstract

The fatigue resulting from prolonged listening to headphone appears to be related to the in-phase motion of earphone diaphragms that cuase the sound to be localized in a single frontal spot within the head, this being entirely unlike what is experienced in the normal mode of listening. Previous attempts to improve headphone listening by a) reversing the phase of the earphones; and b) introducing delays between the earphones of the order of 1 msec have been reported with both favorable and unfavorable results. In the experiment described in this paper, a speech signal was split into two equal 90° out-of-phase channels and connected to earphones through a cross-coupling network which restored normal inter-aural delays. The resulting sound was completely spread within the head, eliminating the oppressive feeling of the usual headphone listening.

Details

Publication
Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
Volume
13
Issue
4
Pages
300–302
Publication date
October 6, 1965
Affiliation
CBS Laboratories, Stamford, CT (See document for exact affiliation information.)
Type
Journal Article