CanJam 08: Team Florida Invites All Their Friends... - Page 16  

Being close to the beach helped the weather around the hotel quite a bit. All us smokers need to give a solid round of applause to Tyrion for the location. 5 miles inland and we would have been taking a shower after every trip outside. Hardly what Mike *wants* our appreciation for, but just pile it on with all the other appreciation he deserves.

The system they're putting out this summer/fall is mainly intended for professional use, and will cost around $3000 for the processing box and the Stax system. They bundle with the Stax system for some control of headphone newbies deciding to plug in their iBuds or other cheap headphones and not really benefiting from the system, in turn spreading bad word of mouth or reviews. With any good headphone system it WILL work. No worries on the cost of this pro system because the Smyth guys are planning to liscense the technology to larger companies for use in receivers and surround sound processors. I asked about the big companies reducing functionality and was assured that they were keeping control of some major standards in the implimentation. I'll warn you right now that if this technology gets bought out it will quite probably go nowhere. If it's done right, this will be huge, and probably a nice boost to headphone AND traditional hi-fi businesses.

I'm not sure the entire process of how this thing is implimented has been described here, so let me lay it out. I never actually went through this whole process but witnessed several others.

You sit in a chair and insert two small earbud microphones. A few test tones are played through your surround system and then a series of calibration tones start to play from each speaker. Instructions are given to turn you head to the left, center, and right (looking directly at each speaker), and measurements are taken from each position. After that you wear the headphones over the microphones, and a few tones are emitted that measure the response of the headphones themselves. It's a complicated process that involves the computer deciding what has been added or taken away from each calibration tone and calculating a new process to emulate those changes. In the end the headphones end up sounding as close as makes no difference to the original surround sound setup. Again this is my impression without actually hearing it in the full implimentation (the room was busy and I'm an impatient person I guess). Forgive me for going off the solid impressions of others but it seemed to be a consensus that this thing works like nobody's business.

The reason you take the measurements in three different head positions: there is a tracking device on top of the headphone and on top of the TV that tracks your head movements and allows the system to model a surround emulation that is responsive to change. The end result is that you can move your head and hear exactly what you'd hear when looking around with the surround system. If you have a large TV and look across the screen you won't feel like the speakers are following you around, something that takes away a huge bit of realism from something like Dolby Headphone or similar technologies.

The overall recorded simulation can be stored on a flash card in the player and loaded into other devices. Also you can use "presets" but they are not modeled to your own ear or headphone, so they will be of lesser quality than your own calibration. The better the surround system, the better your headphone emulation is going to sound.

For the final bit of realism they add a bass shaker platform or similar device, to emulate a subwoofer's rumble. Optional accessory that isn't bundled with the upcoming pro system but worth the investment. I myself use a bass shaker on my computer chair.

I didn't ask them about modeling high end 2 channel rigs, but the functionality should be there.

This thing represents as I said before a lot of potential for future headphone customers, and a renaissance in the hi-fi business as a whole. ALL high end audio shops should be looking to find an implementation of this software to sell, complete with recommended headphone systems. They should also set up a high end surround room, if they don't already have one, and do a setup service for new customers and charge outside customers for use of the room. In the gaming, movie junky, and music communities this thing has potential like nothing I've ever seen. I wish all the best to Smyth.