Just an idea - Binaural parabolic dish microphone - for headphones

Описание: I am not taking this seriously at the moment edit Scratch that! Maybe I will take this seriously! This is part of my hobby interest with audio recording in general. Sound examples at 11:20 raining and non-raining over a few visits, nothing too serious!
After the SR3D KubiQ microphone was introduced with proof of concept due to a subject that was recorded shouted out an answer to a question that I asked while recording him, proving that it worked as intended, the idea of a dish mic has floated by me a few times, so I thought that giving it a go could be interesting, and this is what I have found so far.

Perhaps a great name for a binaural microphone for this would be "Hawk-eye"?

I asked Grok3 for an expansion of what I had heard about eagle's eyes in the past, here's a little of that..:

Hi Grok, I have heard that eagle eyes, or hawk eyes, have like a telephoto lens in the centre of their eye to zoom in within their centre vision, can you expand on that?

Birds of prey like eagles and hawks don’t have a literal telephoto lens in their eyes, but their visual systems are adapted for extraordinary acuity, especially in the central part of their field of view. This is due to a specialized structure called the fovea, a small pit in the retina packed with cone photoreceptors, which are responsible for sharp, detailed, and colour vision.

Magnification Effect: The central fovea in raptors is deeper and more concave than in humans, acting like a magnifying lens. This shape refracts incoming light to spread it across more photoreceptors, effectively increasing the resolution of the image in the brain. It’s not a mechanical zoom like a camera but a biological equivalent that enhances fine detail.

Wider Field of View: While the fovea provides a "zoomed-in" effect centrally, raptors also have a broader field of view (up to 340 degrees in some species) due to the positioning of their eyes and the structure of their retinas. This lets them maintain awareness of their surroundings while focusing on a target.

Why It Feels Like a Telephoto Lens:
The combination of the fovea’s high resolution and the brain’s ability to prioritize this central visual data creates a perceptual "zoom" effect. When an eagle locks onto prey, its brain filters out peripheral noise, amplifying the sharp, detailed image from the fovea. This is akin to how a telephoto lens isolates and magnifies a subject in photography, but it’s achieved through neural and optical optimization rather than mechanical adjustment.


Me asking another question:
Ok, so as an analogy then, a binaural microphone at the focus point of a parabolic dish, and the ears were not focused inside the dish so that the ears had a view over the dish edge, this would be similar in how the eyes see the world as a central amplified point, with a natural binaural sound stage at the front, and the dish acting as an attenuator for behind the dish?

Your analogy is a creative and insightful way to conceptualize the visual system of birds of prey like eagles or hawks! Let’s break it down to see how well it aligns with their vision and where the analogy might diverge, while keeping the explanation concise and clear.

The Analogy:
Binaural microphone at the focus of a parabolic dish: The microphone represents the fovea (especially the central fovea) in the raptor’s eye, which is the point of highest visual acuity. The parabolic dish amplifies incoming signals (sound in this case, light for the eye) by focusing them onto the microphone, much like the fovea’s high density of cone photoreceptors captures and resolves fine visual details with exceptional clarity, creating a "zoomed-in" effect for the central field of view.

Ears not focused inside the dish, viewing over the edge: The ears represent the peripheral retina or the broader visual field outside the fovea. These areas have lower resolution but cover a wider scope, allowing the bird to maintain situational awareness of its surroundings, similar to how ears pick up ambient sounds outside the dish’s focus.

Natural binaural sound stage at the front: This corresponds to the binocular vision provided by the temporal foveae in raptors, where both eyes overlap to create a stereoscopic, depth-enhanced view directly ahead, crucial for judging distance during a strike.

Dish as an attenuator for sounds behind: The parabolic dish blocks or reduces sounds from behind, analogous to how the raptor’s visual system prioritizes the sharp central foveal input over the less detailed peripheral input, and how their forward-facing eyes limit their rearward field of view.