Building a Binaural VST and Why I Couldn't Get 'Elevation' Right

Since my beloved dearVR was end-of-lifed, I built this in collaboration with GPT-5.6-Sol, with Opus 5 writing the main draft of this article. I built NekoSpace Binaural, a spatialization VST plugin designed for audio dramas and ASMR, and recently released the first alpha. Repository: https://github.com/moe-charm/nekospace-audio Release: https://github.com/moe-charm/nekospace-audio/releases/tag/v0.1.0-alpha Tech Stack: C++17 / JUCE 9.0.0 / CMake, AGPLv3, Windows VST3 + Standalone This article isn't a celebratory "look what I built" post. Instead, its purpose is to document what worked and what didn't, backed by real numbers. In particular, my four attempts at handling "elevation" (vertical localization) failed to yield a decisive result. I believe documenting that failure is where the real value lies, so I’ve dedicated most of this post to it. Why Build It? Normally, I record using a Neumann KU100 dummy head microphone. While the KU100 captures the actual acoust