About Cooper Bauck Transaural Incorporated

Cooper Bauck Transaural, Inc. is the entity that develops applications of the Cooper-Bauck patents, including the recording label Duane Records ®. See the online store for a catalog of Transaural ® recordings.

Duane Records ® is in the early stages of producing recordings using the Cooper Bauck Transaural ® Stereo technology. Transaural ® Stereo produces the most accurate rendering of actual acoustical events, such as musical performances, that have ever existed. Yes, we know that for decades others have claimed that theirs is indistinguishable from the original thing. But listening to the final product of those bloated claims has always disappointed the ear. And not just the "critical" ear; listeners in general have come to accept that recorded sound sounds "recorded" and live sound sounds "live."

Transaural ® Stereo Background

Duane Cooper and Jerry Bauck set out some years ago to fix the problem that recordings just don't sound like the original performance, neither being satisfied with any of the recordings that they had heard.

While the quality of the audio channel was historically problematic (record ticks and pops, for example), the channel quality since the advent of digital media has become essentially perfect. The problem that Cooper and Bauck noticed was not one of channel quality, but of what went into the channels; in short, stereo imaging was very poor—poor between the speakers and nonexistent outside the span of the speakers.

Realizing that the audio channels end at the listener's ears, they stood audio engineering convention on its head and worked backwards to find out what should be put into the beginning of the channels so that what ends up at the listener's ears is what is expected; in other words, sounds that are created using solid physical principles.

Ordinary Stereo

The normal stereo recording practice, for decades past to the present, is quite different. Sound recording technicians set up an ad hoc array of microphones and try to convince themselves and others that what winds up in their ears "really is" what happened. The unfortunate truth is that these ad hoc arrays are doomed from the the beginning—once the sound is recorded incorrectly, there is no way of undoing it. The problem is much like the following problem: Someone tells you a number, say 12, and also tells you that it is the sum of two other numbers. What were those two numbers? Well, it could be 3 and 9, or 6 and 6, or 2.1 and 9.9. It's impossible to know. And that is the problem with conventional recording techniques (even if someone tried to "undo" the recordings, which they don't).

There two schools of recording technique, aesthetically speaking. One school is to record a performance with the intent to recreate it in the listener's living room. So-called "live" performances are used—symphonies, jazz and rock bands in clubs. The other school is heavily reliant upon recording studio technology and microphones which are placed very closely to each instrument, often a fraction of an inch from a drum head or in the bell of a horn. Probably without fully realizing it, practitioners of the first school want the result to be that you are in the performance venue as you listen to the recording in your home; practitioners of the second school want you to believe that the band is in your living room.

Transaural ® Stereo is mostly of the first school, trying to make the listener believe he or she is in the concert venue, whether it be a symphony hall or an intimate club in the wee hours. However, since the actual recording has just two channels, multitracking and overdubbing is possible, and can be done on a laptop computer with the addition of high-quality audio converters. And, as you will see below, the headphone monitor signals are binaural!

And the Answer is...

So what is the solution to this engineering design problem? First, the recording must be made with an acoustical mannequin which has high-quality microphones placed in the openings of its ear canals. One might imagine that if this binaural recording were played back with headphones, the original sounds would be replicated at the listener's ears. That's pretty much the case, if certain "touch-ups" are done. However, the common experience of headphone listening is only slightly relieved. The in-the-head sounds that are familiar to all are only slightly alleviated, with the sounds now appearing very slightly outside the head. Many people report hearing the sounds about an inch outside their heads. Further, front sounds are elevated several ten's of degrees, often flipping all the way around to appear behind the listener's head. But nonetheless, a binaural recording over headphones is a good experience.

The second step, and the one which is the crux of Transaural ® Stereo, is to remove the need for headphones to properly enjoy a binaural recording. Unfortunately, playing a binaural recording over loudspeakers is quite a letdown, albeit still demonstrating better stereo imaging than most people have heard. The problem is that now, without the listener's head and headphone combination to keep the left and right channel sounds apart, sound from the left speaker arrives not only at the listener's left ear, but also sneaks around to the right ear, getting mixed up with the sound from the right loudspeaker which was supposed to have the right ear all to itself. And vice versa, left for right.

These unwanted sound paths create what is called crosstalk—the interfering left-to-right and right-to-left sounds. Transaural ® Stereo is the high technology application of acoustical theory and modern (digital) signal processing concepts to make a crosstalk canceler. The result of a binaural recording that has been processed through a properly designed crosstalk canceler is that the original left- and right-ear mannequin signals are delivered to the left and right ears of a listener at home. The result is a stunning recreation, with very high spatial fidelity, of the original performance. Even casual listeners who claim to be tin-eared are uniformly impressed, jaws agape and quizzical looks of, "Can it be true? Where is all of that sound coming from?" Jaded record producers who think they have heard everything are caught off guard, showing pretty much the same reaction.

Transaural ® Stereo versus 5.1 Channel surround sound

But, you say, I have a 5.1 channel home theater system and I don't need another "surround-sound" technology to clog my brain. Well, the same problem plagues 5.1 channel music recordings (we're not talking about movies at the moment) as plagues two-channel recordings. If the performance isn't recorded with microphones placed on opposite sides of a head-like object, then it is impossible to have truly accurate spatial reproduction. Period.

How does Transaural ® Stereo sound compared to my favorite 5.1 recording? Different. Much different. Not even close. Transaural ® Stereo provides a full-sphere immersion just like the original hall. 5.1 channel productions rely on studio and microphone trickery to either (1) simulate some hall that could have sort of existed maybe, or (2) take the "second school" approach which usually results in five clumps of sound in the direction of each loudspeaker. Both are valid approaches; ours is different.

Will my head explode?

No. Is Transaural  ® Stereo fatiguing? No. In fact, you will soon realize that ordinary stereo is fatiguing. Maybe that's why so few people sit quietly in front of their stereos and actually listen. WARNING: The Surgeon General has determined that after experiencing Transaural ® Stereo, ordinary recordings will sound flat and lifeless. Really. Except for the part about the Surgeon General.

But I don't have $50,000!

Do I need special equipment to enjoy this fabulous invention? No. All Transaural ® Stereo recordings are already processed with the crosstalk canceler before the CD is pressed. You need only two loudspeakers as part of an ordinary two-channel stereo set. Even a very modest stereo set is enough to enjoy the full spatial effect. The multimedia speakers on most computers are good enough to get the point across. All that we ask is that you read the simple suggestions that are packaged with each of our CDs.

Our Philosophy

Our philosophy, if that isn't too big a word, at Duane Records ® is this. We will record and release any genre so long as it is competently written and performed. We will apply our recording and engineering know-how to make the best recordings that you have heard. And in keeping with the goal of the fullest fidelity that is possible, we will apply no dynamic range compression or limiters or any other signal mangling device to our pristine signals. If you really like always-the-same-loudness music then stick with commercial pop recordings and FM radio, and bon voyage.

We will cater to the small production and hope that it turns big. We know that the artist and the music are the true value of any project, not the technology. And we truly want to be as financially generous with the artist as possible.