[mschuster91]

> To make a truly “natural” live recording, it might be necessary to use two microphones mounted on opposite sides of a roundish, human-head-sized, sound-dampening object.

Not exactly, you will want 3d-modeled earlobes as only the reflections, delays and echos caused by them allow proper omnidirectional (front-behind) hearing.

edit: also, sound-dampening the head, e.g. making it out of foam, will diminish a natural reception as a part of our sound reception is that soundwaves from one ear get transmitted by our head bones and "material", as well as through vibration via the ground and the bones of the legs. A truly natural recording is very difficult.

[jdietrich]

Such a thing already exists and is commercially available from several manufacturers. Dummy heads are used primarily in acoustic test facilities, but have seen some use for specialised binaural recordings.

The problem with binaural recording is that the resulting stereo field sounds highly unnatural when replayed on loudspeakers. The overwhelming majority of modern recordings and mixes are a compromise between stereo and binaural playback.

https://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=... http://www.bksv.com/Products/transducers/ear-simulators/head...