When virtual audio reproduction is simultaneously required in many seats, such as in aircraft or
cinemas, it may be convenient to use loudspeakers mounted inside each seat's headrest. In
this preliminary study, the feasibility of virtual audio reproduction in the headrest of a single seat
is explored using an inversion technique to compensate for crosstalk and the synthesis of head
related transfer functions. Although large changes in the magnitude of the signals reproduced
at the listener's ears are observed as the listener moves their head within the headrest, informal
listening tests indicate that the reproduced acoustic images are surprisingly stable in about an
eighth of an arc either side of the loudspeaker positions. Not surprisingly, frontal images are
more difficult to reproduce with headrest loudspeakers