Digital audio technology has advanced both the quality and convenience of music listening. Now you can carry around your entire music collection -- in high quality lossless formats, if you are so inclined -- in your pocket and listen to it anywhere with a pair of headphones. But most recordings are made for playback on speaker systems. When you listen to standard recordings on a pair of headphones, the sonic experience is different -- stereo mixes intended for loudspeaker playback don't always sound quite right. It's difficult to get a believable soundstage or a realistic illusion of "being there" when you listen to music through headphones. Or is it?
A technique called binaural recording can be used to capture musical performances, presenting the listener with an almost uncanny sense of imaging and soundstage on headphones. By placing two microphones into the ears of an artificial head, and then playing back these recordings through a high quality pair of headphones, it really is like "being there." Close your eyes and you are transported to that musical performance. But binaural recordings don't always sound great through traditional speakers.
Chesky Records says they've gotten around this dilemma with their new Binaural+ Series of high quality audiophile two-channel recordings. Unveiled today at the New York Audio and AV Show at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in Manhattan, Chesky's Binaural+ recordings are optimized for headphone listening but also create a high-quality musical presentation on standard loudspeakers.
The Binaural+ Series sessions were recorded by Chesky using a Brüel & Kjær 4100-D Binaural head (nicknamed "Lars"), connected via Crystal Cable into the MSB 384/32 Analog to Digital Converter. Recordings in the Binaural+ series are mastered at a super high-resolution 192-kHz sampling rate with 24-bit precision (24/192). This is far superior to CD's 44.1 Khz/16-bit format and leaves MP3 files squarely in the dust.
I had a chance to listen to tracks from "Dr. Chesky's Amazing Binaural Sound Show" through a pair of Etymotic Research ER4P earphones and was very impressed with the realistic illusion of depth and presence, not to mention the wonderfully accurate harmonic balance and wide dynamic range. Many tracks are impressive but one of my favorites is "Dancing Flute and Drums," featuring Anne Drummond on flute and & Dr. Chesky himself on the Djun Djun (an African drum). While the pulsing drum stays consistent on the right side of the stage, the flutist walks around from side to side, in front of and behind you. The illusion of being in the room with these musicians is almost eery. And this sonic quality holds up when listening through traditional speakers albeit without the imaging intensity of headphone listening. Audiophiles who like their music on the go are in for a real treat.
According to a Chesky rep, "The headphone market is booming and we think it is important to bring the ultimate in high-resolution sound to this sector of the record business. Now headphone users will hear the same three-dimensional sound and imaging as audiophiles have for the past 25 years with Chesky Recordings."
Chesky's Current and Planned Binaural+ Releases include:
For more information, go to www.Chesky.com or www.HDTracks.com.
