He's asking for something very specific but it might not be possible to do exactly as he states it. Does he know better than you how to deliver multichannel audio to two earbuds, such that he should be specifying anything? I don't think so.

Dolby Digital, like DTS (and analog and even FM), is a means of getting audio from one place to another. All audio has to be converted to analog at some point before it gets sprayed into his earholes so that his eardrums can respond.

If I were building wireless earbuds, I would be damn sure I could take an analog input way before I would spend a cent on a model that would take digital inputs. Everyone can use two channels of analog audio for headphones, but not everyone has Dolby Digital, so such a product would not sell as well as an analog-only product. That might be why you're having trouble finding them.

Fred's comment about surround is on the mark: there are two earbuds. They go in the ear. Therefore, the physical placement of sound sources around the listener is not possible.

What IS possible, though, is for his brain to interpret the two channels the way we normally interpret sounds coming into our ears, and determine where the sounds seem to come from by their phase and volume relationships.

Put the HDMI output of the Denon through an audio extractor and feed that to the headphones. (You might need to add a small preamp if they won't play loudly enough.) The volume control on his Denon won't control the volume of his headphones, but that's just how it is.


One thing to be cautious of with hearing-impaired clients: you know that idea floating around that people who lose one sense seem to be better with other senses? It's true. The brain's abilities are very flexible, and if sounds from, say, his right ear are highly attenuated, his brain won't use a lot of horsepower trying to interpret what that ear hears unless he makes a point to feed sound to it. That is, it's possible for a person with hearing loss to also lose the ability to localize sound, or even to understand speech in that ear! You should read some on "brain plasticity."