Front or behind?

Put on stereo headphones at a comfortable level. Listen to the same clap twice and decide which one seems behind you.

Try it with your eyes closed

Hear A, B, A, B. Each uses the same original clap at a matched stereo level.

Reveal the positions

A uses the filters measured directly behind the mannequin. B uses the filters measured directly in front. Both were measured one metre away at ear height. The effect can vary with your ears, headphones and playback settings.

AudioScope convolved its original clap with subject T filters from The Viking HRTF dataset v2 (2020) by Simone Spagnol, Riccardo Miccini and Rúnar Unnthórsson, then matched the stereo levels. Dataset licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Try the left-or-right timing test

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