An interesting and technically sophisticated recording system for making Binaural recordings. Recordings are created using a microphone called Kunstkopf (or dummy head) that is actually modelled on reasonably anatomically correct in shape and external density, has microphones located in the ear cavities were the eardrum would be and sits on a resonating chamber that simulates the chest cavity of a human. This produces a recording that has an uncannily lifelike quality when listened to on headphones but has a somewhat limited compatibility with normal loudspeaker systems, the recordings are normally slightly equalised to enhance that compatibility. This technique has got something of a bad rap due to a number of recordings made and distributed in the early 80's that were done with home made kunstkopf systems that were so amateurishly done that the binaural effect was severely limited, this gave rise to the myth that recordings made with the system are "head dependent", i.e. that the binaural effect was dependant on the shape of the listeners head. There are loads of such imitations of the original system that usually simplify the head structure too much to be fully functional, skipping the resonating chamber is fine for scientific and technical purposes such as noise monitoring an analysing but almost absolutely necessary for audio related recordings, the head needs to have a nose and a reasonable emulation of an outer ear and an ear canal, without those last 2 it's simply useless. This is the correct name for both the technique and the microphone, the technique is sometimes referred to as "dummy head recording".

This definition is in context to Audio Technology. See more contextual defintions for Kunstkopf.