Editing Binaural recording (section)

===Timbral issues===
In January 2012 BBC R&D worked together with [[BBC Radio 4]] to produce a binaural production of ''[[Private Peaceful]]''.<ref name="BBC Radio 4">{{Cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2012/02 |title=BBC - Radio 4 and 4 Extra Blog |access-date=6 April 2017 }}</ref> The dramatization featured a reproduction of a 5.1 speaker system, and had 4 variations. At the start of each variation, the listener would hear a series of test signals allowing for a choice of which version gives them the best spatial experience. By doing this, BBC R&D have accepted that there will be variations on the success of the binaural reproduction, and therefore provided different mixes based on different sets of HRTF data. The release of ''Private Peaceful'' had an accompanying survey which all listeners were asked to complete. It asked questions about the success that the binaural reproduction had with the listeners and which version (1-4) the listener thought was most successful.

During an interview with Chris Pike from BBC R&D in September 2012, Pike stated that "you may get good spatial impression but timbral coloration is often an issue".{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} The issue of timbral coloration is mentioned in a large amount of spatial enhancement research and is sometimes seen as the outcome of the misuse or insufficient amount of HRTF data when reproducing binaural audio for example, or the fact that the end-user simply will not respond well to the collected HRTF data. Francis Rumsey states in the 2011 article "Whose head is it anyway?"<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Rumsey |first=Francis |date=2011 |title=Whose Head Is It Anyway? Optimizing Binaural Audio |url=https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/journal/?elib=15982 |journal=Journal of the Audio Engineering Society |volume=59 }}</ref> that "badly implemented HRTFs can give rise to poor timbral quality, poor externalisation, and a host of other unwanted results".<ref name=":2" /> Getting the HRTF data correct is a key point in making the final product a success, and possibly by making the HRTF data as extensive as possible, there will be less room for error such as timbral issues. The HRTFs used for ''Private Peaceful''<ref name="BBC Radio 4" /> were designed by measuring impulse responses in a reverberant room, done so to capture a sense of space, but is not very external and there are obvious timbral issues as pointed out by Pike.{{Citation needed|date=March 2025}}

Juha Merimaa from [[Sennheiser]] Research Laboratories found that using HRTF filters to reduce timbral issues did not affect the spatial localization previously achieved using the data when tested on a panel of listeners.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Merimaa |first=Juha |date=2010 |title=Modification of HRTF Filters to Reduce Timbral Effects in Binaural Synthesis, Part 2: Individual HRTFs |url=http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=15687 |journal=Journal of the Audio Engineering Society }}</ref> This explains that there are ways of reducing the effects of timbral issues on audio that have been processed with HRTF data, but this does mean further EQ manipulation of the audio. If this route is to be further explored, researchers will have to be happy with the fact that the audio is being manipulated in great amounts to achieve a greater sense of spatial awareness, and that this further manipulation will cause irreversible changes to the audio, something content creators may not be happy with. Consideration will have to be taken into how much manipulation is appropriate and to what extent, if any, will this affect the end users experience.