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Comment by The_rationalist | Hacker News Reader

It's been 14 years since the last state of the art 3D audio experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA has anybody done as good since then ? What's this Cetera algorithm ?

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Holy shit that demo is amazing. Are there more demos like that? I was wearing AirPods Pro and nearly jumped out of my seat, I thought someone walked into my room. That’s better than anything I’ve ever heard using so-called “spatial audio”, and it’s just surround sound.

I've found Dolby Atmos for Headphones to be pretty good. I play the video game Overwatch and it integrates atmos into it's sound processing pipeline and the sound is incredibly accurate. You can tell when people are behind/in front/above/below you very reliably.

I was using my old QC15s in the office...I had to stop about a quarter way in because it sounded for all the world like it was just in the room with me, and I couldn't convince my brain that only I was hearing this.

How have we not done better since? How is this not just in every video game now?

I always thought it would be cool if someone made a sound-based gui alternative using spatial audio. Would open up capabilities on devices too small for screens.

This rendition of Amiga tracker music is fantastic as well.

https://youtu.be/W1bgMX4UCjw

I wouldn’t call that a “rendition”. A “cover” or ”remake” would be a better term; it takes some liberties with the source material. Compare it to (one of) the original music:

https://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/media/Oakvalley/soamc/000/MP3/...

It sounds the same as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLMhBE99byM to me. What makes you sure it's not just the original mod with a filter for headphones, as it claims to be?

Huh, I guess there are multiple variants of that same mod, made by different people. It could very well be as you say.

That is a pretty good piece of music. Having always had a special liking to old school music, this instantly got added to my music playlist.

Got more of similar stuff?

If you know "The Last Ninja" from the C=64 times, then this may be something for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7U5pQZJYKM

(Sound of Games: "The Last Ninja - Pure Meditation" - HQ)

This is not an algorithm, but a recording using the binaural dummy head - that's why it sounds so good. However this technique has extremely limited practical application.

> However this technique has extremely limited practical application.

How so? I always wondered, why I didn't here more of this kind of recordings, since I heard a (fantastic) demo in the early 1990's.

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