Abstract: A head mounted surround sound virtual positioning system that includes a video recorder (200), which is operable to have disposed therein a tape (202), having a surround sound audio track associated therewith. The surround sound system is encoded on two channels, which are output to a Dolby.RTM. decoder (204), which is operable to extract the five surround sound system channels therefrom. The left front, left rear, right front and right rear channels are input to a virtual positioning system (264), which is operable to virtually position each of the speakers relative to the head of the listener (26). These signals are then combined with a combining circuit (268) to provide the virtual positioning of only two speaker lines (58) and (60), disposed adjacent the right and left ears of the listener (26). The speakers (58) and (60) are disposed on the head mounted system such that they are fixed relative to, the ear of the listener and slightly forward of the ears and adjacent the head.

Abstract: A sound system has a receiver (204) for receiving individual decoded speaker signals comprised of three independent speaker signals (226) for driving associated speakers (208-214) disposed in predetermined relative positions about the listener. Head mounted speakers (58, 50) are fixed in position relative to the head (26) of the listener. A virtual positioning system (264) receives and then positions the three individual decoded signals (226) from the receiver (204) relative to the listener as virtually positioned speaker signals (266) representative of the predetermined relative positions of the associated speakers. The virtually positioned speaker signals (266) are transmitted proximate to the right and left ears (66, 68) of the listener through the right and left head mounted speakers (58, 60), but are actually perceived by the listener as being at the predetermined relative positions of the three independent speaker signals and their associated speakers (208-214).

Abstract: A head mounted surround sound virtual positioning system that includes a video recorder (200), which is operable to have disposed therein a tape (202), having a surround sound audio track associated therewith. The surround sound system is encoded on two channels, which are output to a Dolby.RTM. decoder (204), which is operable to extract the five surround sound system channels therefrom. The left front, left rear, right front and right rear channels are input to a virtual positioning system (264), which is operable to virtually position each of the speakers relative to the head of the listener (26). These signals are then combined with a combining circuit (268) to provide the virtual positioning of only two speaker lines (58) and (60), disposed adjacent the right and left ears of the listener (26). The speakers (58) and (60) are disposed on the head mounted system such that they are fixed relative to the ear of the listener and slightly forward of the ears and adjacent the head.