Subject: FW: Head and Torso simulator (HATS) From: "Zacharov Nick (NRC/Tre)" <zacharov(at)RESEARCH.NOKIA.COM> Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 08:49:00 PDTSTANDARD METHODS FOR JUDGING THE QUALITY OF HEAD AND TORSO SIMULATORS At this time I am interested in evaluating the various HATS devices available on the market. All (B&K, Cotex, Head) are aimed at very different market segments (telecommunication, instrumentation, binaural work, etc. ) and are thus engineered in different manners. It would appear on first inspection that a lot of work has gone into the design of the head/ears geometry and materials, in all cases, though how the optimum was found is unclear. Binaural recordings made with such devices produce a wide range of experiences to different listeners. In most cases the results are far from what is expected/hoped for. This is not surprising as we all have very different head gometries and have adapted to this thoughout our lives. I would therefore pose the question to all memebers, that is there any information on which commercial HATS provides the 'better' representation of Mr ' Averages' head related transfer functions for use in Binaural studies, and what is this knowledge based upon? Are there any standard methods for evaluating such charactersitcs? I hope that these questions do not meet with too much scorn from the group, as I feel that this is an interesting, releveant and relatively undocumented issue. thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Nick Zacharov Acoustic Research Engineer Audio Systems Nokia Research Center Email: nick.zacharov(at)research.nokia.com PO Box 100 33721 Tampere Tel: +358-31-272-5786 Finland Fax: +358-31-272-5899 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------