Head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) are crucial for plausible binaural audio playback for virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality applications. In such applications, humans showed higher sound-localisation accuracy, higher perceived externalisation, and experience less colouration when using their individual HRTFs compared to non-individual HRTFs. Because high-quality individual HRTFs require cumbersome measurements in specialised facilities, applications often use non-indivdual or dummy-head HRTFs as a practical alternative. Humans are able to adapt to non-individual HRTFs, which leads to a localisation performance comparable to that achieved with individual HRTFs. Therefore, adaptation to non-individual HRTFs could be a practical alternative whenever individual HRTFs are unavailable; However, this would only be possible if the same non-individual standard HRTF was used across different applications. To find out if this is the case, we conducted a survey on HRTF usage among 76 professionals working in the field of spatial audio. The findings suggest that there is currently no de facto standard HRTF. Surprisingly, only half of those with access to individual HRTFs are actually using them, and most would be willing to switch to a default HRTF set if one was established.
