Converting Ambisonics files to Binaural audio
Ambisonics is a full-sphere surround sound format that captures audio from all directions using spherical harmonics. To convert it to binaural audio for headphone listening, you need to apply Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs), mathematical models that simulate how sound waves interact with the human head and ears. HRTFs create the spatial cues necessary to perceive 3D sound direction and distance over stereo headphones. My favourite go-to-tool for converting media files, FFmpeg, unfortunately lacks native binaural rendering. However, it offers channel manipulation filters like amerge, channelmap, and pan. These provide basic channel operations but won’t produce true binaural audio. Here are some tips for how to make it work. ...