Footnote:
It is usually assumed that the HRTF is measured in an anechoic setting,
and thus does not include the effects of environmental sound reflections,
which also provide localization cues. In that case, it is necessary to use
some kind of binaural room simulator to introduce these
important reflections. Failure to do so results in an improper ratio of
direct-to-reverberant sound, and when heard through headphones, the sound
often seems to be either very close to or actually inside of the head.
Lack of externalization is a common problem with simple
headphone systems.
Of course, it is possible to measure the HRTF in an actual reverberant setting
and thus to dispense with the room simulator. However, this has two serious
disadvantages:
- It limits the sounds produced to that particular environment
- It leads to very long impulse responses that use much more memory
and require much longer computation times
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