| Hi Toomin, Thanks for your interest! Let me try to clarify and answer your questions: 1. Songbird is indeed an enhanced alternative to PannerNode. 2. It internally works with ambisonics, but outputs stereo (we use Omnitone internally to render the multichannel audio down into a stereo track). The general reason people use ambisonics instead of direct HRTF rendering is because ambisonics allows for head rotation prior to rendering, so the user can easily turn their head, etc. without you having to adjust all the incoming sources' hrtfs. The reason we feel Songbird is an upgrade to PannerNode is three-fold: One, you can control the quality of the localization/spatialization effect by adjusting ambisonicOrder (1st to 3rd, atm). Two, PannerNode is costly... 2 convolutions per source, while songbird is a fixed number of convolutions irregardless of the number of sources, so it ends up allowing you to get more for less. Three, PannerNode doesn't support any sort of room modelling and Songbird produces spatialized (ambisonic) room reflections and reverberation. Hope this helps clarify things! :) Cheers,
Drew |