Talk:Holophonics

Holophony (acoustic holography) was invented (and the term coined) by Maurice Jessel of CNRS in Marseille in the 1970's. Jessel did a PhD under the supervision of Louis de Broglie (the Physicist) in Paris in the 1960's. de Broglie wanted Jessel to generalise the work of David Bohm in Quantum Mechanics and de Broglie's own Pilot Wave Theory. This Jessel did, but chose to make his career in acoustics and is considered to be the father of Active Acoustic Absorption and Wave Field Synthesis. These subjects are covered very poorly in Wiki. I knew Jessel, and visited him in Marseille, and have worked in the area (on the Theoretical Physics side) myself. I will undertake to try to improve these Wiki entries but it will take me some time. Keithbowden (talk) 07:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a really unreadable article about something which nonetheless deserves a wiki entry, how has this survived here in this form?!

discussion removed from article
I removed a discussion from the main article, one anonymous writer called Zuccarelli's theory entirely incorrect, another one wrote as a comment to these two words: "Note: While the the theory and its objections seem fairly explained the '(entirely incorrect)' statement seems subjective." The article states clearly that it's a theory and that two letters in New Scientist question both the theory itself and Zuccarelli's scientific abilities. Maggy Rond 15:41, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I removed the reference to "well-known limitations". Even if they are well-known by someone or some group, the information must be verifiable for a wikipedia article. Holon (talk) 13:06, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

From the article-- "Holophonics should not be confused with holophony..." The link for holophony redirects back to this article, so anyone that does confuse the two will be even more confused. Shayde12301972 (talk) 19:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Fixed it (should have led to holophonic recording), thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Its correct, I have changed the holophonics redirect to wave field synthesis as related topic, also holophonic recording is linked to wfs, which is related to huygens principle as like the optical holography. --Oelwiki (talk) 17:07, 4 May 2008 (UTC) In its early years, Holophonics was used by various artists including Michael Jackson, who used Holophonics on his album "Bad",( a lawsuit for breach of contract and trademark infringement, landed Mr Zuccarelli 90 days in jail,following the singer and record company strategy of accusing Mr Zuccarelli of battering 3 lawyers( ironically the lawyer representing Jackson was defence attorney Mark Geragos ( who later defended Jackson on His pedophile case). Paradoxically, the judge who landed the jail sentence, was the son of composer Arnold Schoenberg( Ronald Schoenberg, now retired), Who's catalogue or music was published by Sony records( Michael Jackson's label) The articles starting the so called Controvercy has been owned, or controlled by people who has economic interest on another sistem called Ambisonics. The editor for Most of the sounds magazines in London Richard Ellen required Mr Barry Fox to debunk Holophonics TM even 4 months before Mr Fox eard the sYstem. Prince Charles was sayed to be a heavy investor on the unpopular Ambisonics TM whos promoters started the Controvercy agains Mr Zuccarelli. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.255.48.101 (talk) 20:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Holophonics Tm vs Binaural
Most people who referred to Holophonics Tm as being a Binaural recording, obviously do not know what a binaural recording is. In its very nature a binaural recording is made in such way to introduce a shadowing object( can, or no resemble a human head),to produce a refraction on certain frequencies of the spectrum.And a distance similar to the ears is used to generate time delays between channels. Obviously this and other objects ( shoulders etc), will introduce shadowing effects to sounds, that are away from the meridian part of the head. Therefor any attempt to qualify sounds directly in front, back, up or down of the head, will be compromised. Also a factor of symmetry plays a roll on way a rubber ear with a microphone cannot mimic the ears natural abilities. Of course symmetrical deflections of sound will be interpreted as MONO signals by the brain, placing sounds inside the head, of the listener. The most realistic binaural recording, according to a panel of GOLDEN EARS recruited by BBC radio in London, in 1984, Agrees to be a Jacklin Disc recording. Being the disc made of acrylic, and not resembling the shape or size of the head. A blind test was conducted by the sound experts in 1984, and after the Jacklin Disc was voted BEST( compared to all other Human heads available ), the recordings were then compared to Holophonics TM. The general consent by the BBC panel was that Holophonics TM was unique on the fact that provided vertical information as well as a pronounced front back discrimination.( the results of the test was published by broadcasting news magazine. Also a very disturbing fact was pointed out, that only in a Holophonics TM recording the phase of one channel can be reversed with no aparent diminishing of the Holophonics TM effect. Proof of the different kind of information included on a Holophonics TM recording , is the fact that two or thee way speakers with no phase accuracy diminish the Holophonic TM effect( as compared with coaxial , time aligned, Or single way ones). The fact that Holophonics TM do not contained phase information between channels was demonstrated at CBS when the master vinyl record was analyzed on the microscope, because the phase meter shows no phase at all!!!( out of phase channels resembles sausages, and produce the needle to jump of the groove). The vinyl recording of Holophonics Tm indeed was taken as a proof of Holopohonics Tm NOT being of a BINAURAL nature. Furthermore the Real World program conducted a blind test LIVE on a broadcasting dedicated to Holophonics TM, on it a young man is asked to point the motion of a vertical rattle from a matchbox wile using a single ear!!! The simple test of metering the Holophonics Tm phase between channels will end any posible discusion. Also an interesting fact is that the 2 channels are not related by time delays synchronicities, as commonly seen in binaural. For that reason binaural recordings cannot be played on speakers unless are heard on the sweet spot between the speakers. There are videos on Youtuve, showing a japanese audience pointing to a flying bird as it circle the top of the room. Various locations, including outside the boundaries of the speakers were used for the demo. Zuccarelli can be contacted at Zuccarelli@yahoo.com. The videos in Youtube are under hzuccarelli. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hugo Zuccarelli (talk • contribs) 20:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

These claims are entirely without support, and directly contradict hundreds of papers in the field. Binaural recordings, whether made via natural recording (dummy head) or synthesized via HRTF's work even better for sound localization than any Holophonic recording ever has. Contemporary methods for spatialization are quite effective with monaural sound, utilizing well known spectral cues for elevation. All of the Holophonics demos are easily replicated with dummy head or HRTF based techniques.

Without even *one* independent, peer-reviewed paper cited that 1) describes what Holophonics actually is, and 2) demonstrates that the results in blind studies show a notable improvement, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that this is little more than exotic marketing hype for a straight dummy-head recording technique. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cshorse (talk • contribs) 19:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually there is an additional article that has yet to be cited on this wiki page:

Journal: 	The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Vol/Issue: 83 (2), Date: Jan 1, 1988, Page: 847

Article:	Process for forming an acoustic monitoring device

Author(s):	Zuccarelli, Hugo

I'm not sure if it was ever digitized, as this issue of Journal of the ASA is unavailable through their online database (too old I suppose). If any one gets a chance to read it, or if Mr. Zuccarelli would like to summarize, please "weigh in" its relevance to this discussion. Peace.--Revlin john (talk) 19:59, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's listed on the Journal's website, but the PDF download brings up the wrong page. It's also supposedly only a page long, so I'm guessing it's just an abstract. The online version of the issue stops on the page where abstracts for student theses start, and won't show any further pages. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:44, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, it's obviously just an abstract for this patent: . The patent basically makes the Holophonic system look like a binaural system with a realistic head (right down to a fake, squishy brain). That's an analysis I'd hesitate to put in the actual article unless some reliable source has noted the same thing, but then I'd also rather see all of the vague statements separating holophics from binaural recordings removed from the article. Lots of stuff needs to be removed from this article. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The patent verifies that the holophonic technique is nothing more than binaural manneqin-head recordings, as has been stated here for some time. I'm putting the binaural references back in and cleaning this up a bit.  It definitely needs more work but this is a big start.Cshorse (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I looked up this reference in JASA, and it is a section where they review patents. Here's the comments the reviewer made: "The patent has left little to chance in this human head simulation system for 'holophonic' (as in 'laser holography') sensing of sound fields. The patent describes  the manufacturing  steps  to create a head with a rigid she11  coated with a resilient  layer. The steps and the result are reminiscent of a head developed more than 20 years ago at CBS Laboratories.  It is interesting that, in addition to auricles and a pair of pressure sensitive membranes  at positions  simulating  the auditory organs,  the following are necessary  components: Eustachian  tubes, nasal cavities, an oral cavity with a tongue and teeth, neck vertebrae, and a simulated brain of water, alcohol, and cellulose in a polyethylene  bag. According  to the specification,  the temperature  of the structure is to be thermostatically controlled at 98.6 øF. It  should have a wig."
 * It's pretty clear that he was doing everything he could to make an accurate mannequin head. Well, except for the hair.Cshorse (talk) 20:43, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems that Mr. Zucarelli is back editing this article, and again adding claims that cannot be supported. Unlike what Mr. Z says, there is no evidence at all the the human ear is emitting any sound signal that is used for intereference and localization perception. If you are going to make the claim, you MUST support it with scientific references. Further, the claim that monaural sound cannot be localized via HRTF's is nonsense as well. It's well known that spectral information from the HRTF provides localization cues even when only one ear is used (see Gikley & Anderson's book, cited in the article). The old shaking matchbox demo has been widely used in - you guessed it - binaural mannequin head recording demos! Cshorse (talk) 17:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Recordings released using holophonics
Roger Waters, (?)"Amused to Death" - "Three wishes"...
 * --Tpyvvikky (talk) 02:58, 2 December 2018 (UTC)