
The rise of 8D Audio on YouTube - imartin2k
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/why-are-so-many-dudes-losing-their-shit-over-8d-audio
======
LandR
I don't like this at all.

I listened to this one:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuDkhSJoryI&feature=player_e...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuDkhSJoryI&feature=player_embedded_uturn)

And it's just too distracting, it doesn't feel like being in the room with the
music at all. It just feels like it's going from the left ear to the right
ear. It just sounds really weird.

It doesn't invoke the feeling of being at a concert at all, as the sound is
constantly "moving" in space. Maybe it would be like being at a concert where
I'm in some sort of car circling the stage... With the source of the music
constantly changing.

~~~
mnw21cam
Agreed. You're sacrificing the actual sound of the music, making it muffled
and otherwise poor quality, adding in the "amazing" swing-it-around-your-head
effect (which by the way you could do decades ago), and calling it better.

I listened to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Nothing else matters", and compared to
the originals. The originals were _much_ better.

Maybe if you're listening on rubbish earbuds anyway, the effect sounds cool.
But on my reasonably expensive headphones it just kills it.

~~~
mnw21cam
So, I listened to some of the other linked tracks, and they're much better
than the Bohemian Rhapsody one, although they still just sound like someone
discovered the pan control. The virtual barbershop was cool, but that's
specifically because they recorded it with the proper equipment.

------
mb_72
"There are a few different ways you can make it, but it’s really
distinguishable when someone makes 8D correctly. When it’s done wrong, the
music doesn’t sound like it’s in the room with you. It just pans back and
forth."

That's what the few examples listed in the article sounded like to me; in fact
I found the panning of the instruments and vocals a bit frustrating to listen
to. Perhaps this works better on some people than others, i.e. non-musicians?

~~~
speedplane
Don't most people look at YouTube on their phone or crappy laptop speakers? I
look forward to the day when people care about their "hi-fi" stereo again, but
I don't see that coming anytime soon.

~~~
FractalParadigm
Unfortunately, I feel that the only ones who will "care" about it "again" are
the only ones who care _currently_. There's a reason people don't have Hi-Fi
setups anymore; they're completely unnecessary and a waste of time/money/space
when >80% of the population will tell you they can't hear a difference between
the EarPods that came with their phone, and a $10,000 top-of-the-line stereo
hooked up to $2000 monitors.

Anecdote time; friends of mine own(ed) a niche A/V store, their grandparents
opened the store in the early '60s and their primary focus was to carry, sell,
service, and most importantly demo everything from a $50 loudspeaker to the
$10,000+ amp. Back then, every product was completely different from the next.
A $50 amp and a $500 amp was like the difference between a CRT TV and a 4K
OLED TV, same with speakers. About 25 years ago when their parents took over,
it was already becoming evident (mainly with everything going digital) that
the difference between a $50 amp and a $500 amp wasn't nearly as pronounced as
it was 50 years ago. 5 years ago the business pivoted away from A/V, because
nobody is going to spend $500 on an amp or receiver when they can pick up a
$30 soundbar at Walmart and get 95% of the quality/experience. I've seen it
myself; the family is still a bunch of die-hard audiophiles where money is
absolutely not an object when it comes to audio, to the point they built a
home theater and spent $30,000 on a custom-built 11.2-channel tube-based Atmos
receiver, >$2500 _per speaker_ (that's right, nearly $30,000 in speakers), and
around $10,000 for each subwoofer. While most of our friend group will tell
you it's unquestionably the greatest sounding thing on the planet, there's
still a few who'll put in their dollar-store earbuds, load up a 360p song on
YouTube, and tell you completely straight-faced it sounds no different.

~~~
speedplane
There are middle-grounds between folks happy with dollar store earbuds and
those spending $30k on a stereo system. Many in that middle care about sound
quality PLUS design. This is why Bang and Olufsen still exists, and I admit
I'm a sucker for good design too, I own awesome 1980s Magnepan speakers that
look even cooler than they sound.

People spend $200 or $300 on Beats headphones, and are happy to overlook the
inferior quality to get a hot name brand. I have two wishes:

(1) that companies with very strong brands actually cared and invested in
quality and R&D (ahem, beats); (2) that companies that actually do have the
quality and attention to detail in their product, find a way to use modern
media effectively, and not just drive potential customers to their particular
products, but encourage folks with a passion for pure beautiful sound that
their aim is worthy.

------
mprev
I read the article and I listened to the samples and I fail to see where the
"8D" comes in.

Early virtual surround sound examples always seemed impressive, if gimmicky: a
plane would fly over your head and you'd hear it move from back to front.

But the examples in the article sounded like someone had discovered the stereo
pan knob on a mixing desk and was slowly going from left to right.

~~~
da_murvel
And I think your example of the plane is where this technique is applicable.
In a cinema for example, imagine yourself watching a horror movie and you can
hear the evil demon sneak up behind your back. _shivers_. In a concert setting
however, the source of the sound is (usually) static, while I might move my
head slightly from time to time and pick up the sound from different angles.
If that could be simulated using headphones, that would be pretty cool! But
again, I fail to see what purpose it would serve in a normal stereo setting
where the sound is produced the same way, from stationary speakers. Then of
course there are other factors like the venue layout, design and material. As
well as speaker placement, mixing of the sound and even the crowd itself.
Which all contributes to the sound and the "feeling" of listening to the
music.

~~~
filmor
Well, the source may be static, but it may be distributed. Think of a big
symphonic orchestra.

~~~
da_murvel
Of course, but that doesn't equal the sound "moving around", the violin
section will always remain in the same place for example, which is the feeling
I get when listening to one of those 8D Audio videos on youtube. The sound
moving around that is.

------
pdkl95
> binaural audio

By far the best use of binaural audio I've heard is the simulated voice-
hearing of psychosis that Ninja Theory used in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

[trigger warning re: psychosis, other mental health issues for all of
Hellblade]

The _very_ impressive - and disturbing - opening of the game (headphones
required):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-SRoil79g0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-SRoil79g0)

Dev diary about designing and implementing the voices:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQQ2Jm2dgXk&t=0s&list=PLbpkF...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQQ2Jm2dgXk&t=0s&list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcKBG-
RoUOQ6BJRXp&index=25)

------
pttrn
Is this a joke? This just pans the audio from left to right. People are
(choosing my words carefully) easy to please these days.

------
bsaul
Having worked on that field a long time ago, there is absolutely no way the
binaural effect can work well for everybody on every kind of headphone.

The way the fake front / back / top / under positioning is done is by
simulating frequency alteration depending on sound origin (for example, your
ear geometry filters higher frequencies this way when they come from the
front, and this other way when they come from the back).

The problem is that not only your whole body is sensitive to sound waves, but
also every person's body is different. If you want a good effect, you need to
calibrate the frequency alteration to work with your body, using your sound
equipment.

------
mr_sturd
In 2018, the world rediscovered stereo.

~~~
jen729w
Or QSound. I remember my tape version of The Immaculate Collection sounding
pretty fancy on my JVC boom-box.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSound)

[http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/q-sound.12511/](http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/q-sound.12511/)

------
SuperNinKenDo
Mixed results. Mostly unimpressive. The Mura Masa mix was a bit of a more
interesting experience: you could tell they'd put some thought into it.

Edit: From the comments I'm starting to wonder if certain people perceive this
effect differently. I'm very much on team "so you discovered the pan nob?" but
the way people are talking, I have to assume that there's two groups of people
having two wildly different experiences.

~~~
HocusLocus
This is a young generation who grew up hearing cellphone speakers, trashy
computer speakers placed close together (because the manufacturer thought 3'
wire was cheap enough), and earbuds that deliver sound but fail to isolate
environment noise, so the brain is assaulted with near-mono information. These
people have never experienced true stereo: wide separation. So flanging has
been rediscovered and is considered amazing, just as when it was applied to
guitar signals in the '70s.

~~~
smcl
Come on, the majority of people _regardless of their generation_ will have
grown up playing music on dodgy speakers, whether that's 8 track player in a
car, a portable transistor radio, a boombox running on D-cells or a CD player
with builtin speakers.

Yes I think it's dumb when people listen to music on their phone speakers. No
this doesn't mean they're any different from the rest of us. This is just
"pssh, kids these days!" spread out over a few sentences.

~~~
HocusLocus
Yes I'm an old codger saying keep off my lawn, but it's more than that. These
kids were cheated in the quality department. Audio experience delivered to
consumers has degraded across the spectrum because of diminished expectations
and mass production choices. I have a mono '70s portable radio with a 6"
permanent magnet speaker cone that delivers such impressive bass you forgive
the distortion. Boom boxes of the 70s with even simple crossovers and
dual/triple speakers per channel were magnificent, but large. The irony is
that as the quality of magnets and materials improved, the industry was
already on a track that emphasized smallness and thinness over everything
else. I could sketch a graph that shows general improvement of quality over
time for everyone, because that was the expectation. Then it plateaus right
around the time mass production was shifted from Japan to China, and a
separate overlapping curve which represents those who can discern quality and
are willing to pay arises. Today if you can discern quality of sound
reproduction you are part of a small captive audience and despite improved
technology and materials, your choices are limited unless your funds are
unlimited.

Simpler put, 'high fidelity' has become a boutique item. And as expectations
fall, it's going out of fashion.

------
userbinator
I suspect "8D" is an emoticon instead of actually referring to a mythical 8
dimensions --- an expression of surprise and amazement when they heard what
can be done using stereo.

~~~
rasz
I suspect its a 4chan prank, 8-D

------
h4l0
IMO, Virtual Barber Shop was more impressive.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA)

------
Sholmesy
This is absolutely amazing, and is one of the first things in a while where
technology has made my jaw drop.

A lot of these vids are a bit gimmicky, and over doing it, but this is so
cool.

~~~
mprev
Genuine question: which part, specifically, was amazing? I'm wondering if
there's something some people perceive (such as yourself) and others, like me,
don't.

~~~
Sholmesy
I'm familiar with directional audio (when playing games, 7.1 sound or w/e) and
stereo sound (when listening to music), there is something that feels super
immersive from some of the tracks.

I've just spent 30 minutes listening to as many as I can, some are terrible
and some are great, maybe try more tracks.

I can totally empathize with people saying that this is annoying/distracting,
and I can't see myself doing it for a long period of time, but as a tech
demo/cool thing, I find this awesome.

------
p0nce
The thing with binaural is that the listener isn't "safe": the singer can go
sing very near one's ear, violating expectations of personal space. So there
might be rejection when used unfairly.

I think binaural is a great opportunity for more access to emotions when used
well.

We made a tool for this kind of effect:
[https://www.auburnsounds.com/products/Panagement.html](https://www.auburnsounds.com/products/Panagement.html)

------
ykevinator
Even though its kind of gimmicky it's pretty amazing

~~~
isoprophlex
I'm listening to the Owl City track on a train, and had to take off my
headphones to make sure the music wasn't blasting from my phone. Pretty cool.

~~~
nmeofthestate
It's actually even more annoying than an Owl City song that doesn't oscillate
from left to right behind my head.

I think one aspect of it that adds to the annoying experience - it's as if the
music is lurking around in your personal space right behind you, which is
really irritating when a person does it.

------
jorvi
More so than ‘8D’ I wish more music was recorded in 5.1; I realize the vast
majority of people doesn’t have a 5.1 setup so its probably not worth the
money and mixing effort (minimal by the way, instruments and voices are
already recorded individually).

If you do have 5.1 and an Apple TV hooked up, search for ‘surround speaker
check’ in the App Store and play the 5.1 test. You’ll be amazed how nice 5.1
music sounds.

------
lloeki
Hmm, when a guy approached me the other day boasting about 8D music I laughed
so hard, it sounded so much like snake oil. I did some cursory research though
but did not find anything.

Now that there's this Queen demo, I recognise the kind of rendering effect
this is achieving, and such schemes making the sound more realistically
spatial with headphones has been existing for years (decades), such as Dolby
Headphones[0] or binaural audio[1] either beforehand or via post-processing
(e.g Bauer stereophonic to binaural[2] a.k.a BS2B).

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1bgMX4UCjw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1bgMX4UCjw)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording)

[2]:
[http://bs2b.sourceforge.net/bs2b_lib.html](http://bs2b.sourceforge.net/bs2b_lib.html)

------
alok-g
HN, please fight back and prevent this from being called "8D". Non-technical
people are getting fooled by this. If the term continues to get used, it will
become a standard, perhaps even making its way into dictionaries.

------
mikece
I haven't felt this annoyed by something I've heard since the time ten years
ago my boss tried to argue us into writing VB.NET instead of C#. At least the
audio of that conversation was received normally...

------
dsego
You probably need a good pair of headphones with a good soundstage to
experience as intended. The effect on my TFZ series 2 isn't very pronounced or
immersing.

~~~
SyneRyder
I notice that while I get the effect with my Bose QC25s, it's even more
pronounced with the noise-cancelling (and amp) turned on than with it turned
off.

------
StreakyCobra
It is fun to listen to a few songs, mainly to see what is possible for sound
localization with stereo headphones. But I really don't want to listen to
music like this, i.e. moving left and right behind my head, all the time.
Quite perturbing for me, but all brains are different (speaking knowingly, I
have aphantasia), so maybe some people really like it.

------
nvahalik
This reminds me of one of the demos that used to come with Sound cards back
when I was in high school. You could make anything sound like it was inside of
a concert hall, a bathroom, or a street... You could even "position" yourself
to make different tunes comes from different angles.

------
Juliate
It _can_ be nice, if properly used.

The Queen example is lousy at best: instead of having the single audio source
wander in space, it could have been used with a true mix to actually position
(and move, properly) each voices/instruments in space.

But of course, you'll need the original tapes to be able to do that. :p

~~~
notacoward
My thoughts exactly. I'd like to be able to hear the guitar _here_ and the
vocalist _here_ and the drums _over there_. If the individual sounds move
around separately that's cool. The Virtual Barber Shop example does a good job
illustrating that, with a voice on one side and a phone on the other
simultaneously etc. They even play with distance as well as direction. I have
only a vague idea how that works, but it definitely adds to the experience.
The Bohemian Rhapsody example, by contrast, is just crap. Panning the entire
ensemble from left to right, over and over? Meh. Then it's not even stereo
like it was originally. It's just sequential mono. It's _reduced_ , not
expanded.

These effects generally require at least having the original separate tracks,
if not specialized recording techniques. However, I still have hope that
advanced signal processing can separate the parts well enough after the fact
to get a satisfactory result. I'm no ML fanboi by any means, but I'm pretty
sure those techniques could be productively brought to bear on the problem as
well. I'll bet there's a grad student or two working on it right now, and I
wish them great success.

------
maeln
Going back and listening to the example again, I can see (well ... hear
really) how the music feels like it "surround" you (it a bit difficult to
identify where the sound is "coming from"). But for the most part, you just
ear the music panning left and right.

------
alpaca128
To me this feels like moving a photograph in front of someone's face and
calling it 3D. Pretty underwhelming, and I wonder if the creators of such
effects ever listened to high-quality recordings on good headphones.

------
pizza
For more on how the brain positions sounds in space,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization)

------
ahoka
I would be much happier if record companies brought back dynamics to music.

------
Oras
Listened to one of these two weeks ago and I really like it. It's worth
mentioning though that not all of them are the same quality or give the same
feeling of moving sounds around.

------
RandomInteger4
"8D audio", or in other words "Nothing new with added marketing spin"

------
sn41
ASMR is also mentioned in the article. I find it pretty effective at evoking
sensations.

------
Koshkin
It’s always fascinated me why we are sold 7.1 audio when we only have two
ears.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Because the world is 3D, and our two ears can discriminate in amazing ways. We
hear through bone conduction and tactile response and even some ultrasound
and, oh, also through our ears.

------
sunnyP
Sounded like some idiot teenager had found the pan control.

------
bnastic
Pan pot automation is now 8D?

‘Cos I can’t hear anything else going on in there

