ABSTRACT
Headphones provide us the most direct way of delivering audio content. In properly positioned traditional headphones, this means the left channel to the left ear, and the right channel to the right ear. This chapter focuses on the many acoustic and psychoacoustic factors, theories, and processing methods used to create immersive audio over headphones, as their impact and contribution to the resulting listening experience. Binaural sound refers to the two-channel sound that enters a listener's left and right ears. The perception of binaural sound relies on interaural time difference and interaural intensity difference cues. The ultimate goal of reproducing binaural signals is to re-create an acoustic signal at the eardrums of the listener that would be equivalent to the signal that a listener would hear under natural listening conditions. There are many advantages to headphone reproduction of binaural signals. The most significant advantage is that headphones provide a controlled listening environment.
