Holophonic sound

Holophonic sound, a demonstration of how you can get surround sound from only two speakers. We only have two ears, yet we can perceive location because they are slightly offset. Our brain compares the input from both ears over time and makes a guess as to how the sound is moving through space. A short sound is harder to locate than a long sound, because for a longer sound we can rotate our head and see the relative change for each ear. By subtly varying the timing and volume of sound sent to each ear, you can fool the brain into thinking it comes from a particular location. I bet the demo above works a lot better with the constant, repetitive sounds they chose than more varied sounds, where changes in volume and pitch might not correspond to changes in location.