Individual in-situ calibration of insert headphones

An important procedure in binaural reproduction is the calibration of headphones, which is commonly achieved by first measuring the headphone transfer functions (HpTFs). The commonly used methods of measuring the HpTF are not applicable for insert headphones, since the inserts block the ear canal entrance and since the transducer ports of the inserts are inside the ear canals. Recently, an alternative technique of obtaining HpTFs of inserts using measurements with in-ear microphones, computational modeling, and electro-acoustic Norton-type source models of the inserts has been proposed. In this study, the technique is evaluated using measurements at the eardrums of eight human subjects and computational modeling with normal human ear canal parameters. In addition, different methods of obtaining the electro-acoustic source model parameters are compared. It is shown that the most reliable method of obtaining the Norton source parameters of insert headphones is through measurements with a miniature-sized par...