I was at CanJam and heard the Ossic X. I don't think I could give a review as I only listened to it for about 10 minutes. My impression of it is that it has potential for something I would think VR would be it for me because I don't think I want to sit and listen to music and look around to change what I'm hearing.
Has anyone actually reviewed this? I can't find actually find any reviews of audiophiles or anyone that isn't a marketing piece. It makes me a bit skeptical, whereas the Taction Kannon's are another kickstarter with solid user reviews that I can actually get behind..
Has anyone actually reviewed this? I can't find actually find any reviews of audiophiles or anyone that isn't a marketing piece. It makes me a bit skeptical, whereas the Taction Kannon's are another kickstarter with solid user reviews that I can actually get behind..
That is the power of kickstarters. You can hype and sell for a long time without showing much. Buy when it´s ready don´t invest. You won´t get much in form of a return on investment there is like 1% of the kickstarters that give back to their investors. It does exist but it´s rare.
Thanks for the review I'll check it out...I'm just sad that the Taction Kannon might not hit its goal, I'm super pumped about it. Probably just bad timing with the ossic campaign going on at the same time.
"...we’re doing it a bit differently in that we’re not doing a direct measurement but steering the high frequency component around your ear to make sure that it hits your ear from the right angle and with those 4 zones combined with some amplitude panning to get the reflections happening in the right order for your ear so there’s a big difference for front vs. side vs. behind and this happens in real time with real time panning around the ear..."
So it actually has nothing to do with HRTF. Are these guys redefining the science of sound localization?
I also found that they have been constantly changing the story about how the headphones works. OSSIC's post on reddit was telling a totally different story:
"...The headset can measure each users HRTF instantly when the put the headset on, this takes into account ear shape, and the size of the head, and outputs audio closer to how your ears pick it up in physical space..."
I don't understand why there is such inconsistency when talking about this important topic...
"...we’re doing it a bit differently in that we’re not doing a direct measurement but steering the high frequency component around your ear to make sure that it hits your ear from the right angle and with those 4 zones combined with some amplitude panning to get the reflections happening in the right order for your ear so there’s a big difference for front vs. side vs. behind and this happens in real time with real time panning around the ear..."
So it actually has nothing to do with HRTF. Are these guys redefining the science of sound localization?
I also found that they have been constantly changing the story about how the headphones works. OSSIC's post on reddit was telling a totally different story:
"...The headset can measure each users HRTF instantly when the put the headset on, this takes into account ear shape, and the size of the head, and outputs audio closer to how your ears pick it up in physical space..."
I don't understand why there is such inconsistency when talking about this important topic...
The language is sometimes a bit sloppy, I agree. It seems that when they say "measure HRTF" they mean that the cans measure ear spacing, which would feed into the ITD and ILD calculations. This doesn't, as the quote says, account for ear shape. They skip that by using the multiple drivers, which have been problematic in the past so we shall see how they handle the spectral component. They seem to be going by a spherical-head (for ITD/ILD) + pinna (for spectral component) model. By "high frequency component" I assume they mean the "the part of the spectrum where pinna effects occur".
"...Normal stereo is limited to 5, or 7 channels and the sound profile is limited to a 2 inch area around your ear. Our device takes that area, expands it around your entire body using your unique HRTF measurements, and is still not limited to a certain number of channels like conventional stereo..."
"...The headphones have 8 positional audio drivers, and an internal boomless microphone array, including the sensors that measure head shape and ear variance.... Our sensors use beam steering to reflect sound down into your inner ear after reflecting of the natural shape of your outer pinna to provide individual sound profiling..."
"...The goal of the OSSIC X headphone is to deliver calibration automatically. By using multiple drivers, each unique pinna can be used by ensonifying the appropriate section of the ear for the active HRTF, without requiring the user to put mics in their ears.."
I don't think they failed to use the language correctly. It is a US company. They know English very well. It is more like that they are trying to perfect their story on the flight when they are selling it --- a common mistake by a snake oil salesman
Have you actually heard the Ossic X - or are you merely guessing? You seem to have some pretty strong accusations. Hope you have the actual experience with the headphone to back them up. Every demo I've read about so far, they seem to have a lot of people pretty convinced. And that includes technical people from Dolby / THX and also game manufacturers. If this was "snake-oil", don't you think the demos, the reviews, and more importantly peers within the industry would all be singing from a different songbook?
I for one would like to hear the things before I make any call good or bad.
I've bought a pair on the KS. I tell you what - I'll let you know how they really sound when I review them .......
"...Normal stereo is limited to 5, or 7 channels and the sound profile is limited to a 2 inch area around your ear. Our device takes that area, expands it around your entire body using your unique HRTF measurements, and is still not limited to a certain number of channels like conventional stereo..."
"...The headphones have 8 positional audio drivers, and an internal boomless microphone array, including the sensors that measure head shape and ear variance.... Our sensors use beam steering to reflect sound down into your inner ear after reflecting of the natural shape of your outer pinna to provide individual sound profiling..."
"...The goal of the OSSIC X headphone is to deliver calibration automatically. By using multiple drivers, each unique pinna can be used by ensonifying the appropriate section of the ear for the active HRTF, without requiring the user to put mics in their ears.."
I don't think they failed to use the language correctly. It is a US company. They know English very well. It is more like that they are trying to perfect their story on the flight when they are selling it --- a common mistake by a snake oil salesman
It would seem the question to ask is "how exactly do you take pinna shape into account". I am just surmising that they are only taking a distance measurement, but it's very possible they these sensors to account for "ear variance" are in there. I haven't seen anyone deconstruct the thing yet, so we'll know when we know. You can ask OSSIC to clarify but I'm sure at some point you get into the protecting-intellectual-property issue. And if you think US engineers English well, then you never met my EE roommate who carried an electronic dictionary around with him.
I don't have issue with the headtracking feature they claimed. It is not new and can be done easily. As I mentioned previously there have been many implementations -- including headphones.
However, the way or format in which the current existing audio contents were captured put the limitation on its effectiveness. You can do a simple experiment to see this limitation by, for example, existing stereo audio contents. At your normal listening position in a standard stereo settings with two speaks, when turning your head (and body 180 degrees. that clear stereo soundstage you originally had will no longer exist even though you can hear those two speaks behind you. This limitation is also in other channel based surround sound formats such as Dolby 5.1. So for headtracking to be fully functional in 360 the audio contents have to be captured and produced in some new formats, such as Ambisonics.
By the way if you want the headtracking listening experience you can now have it on your Android smartphone with ordinary headphones. Today YouTube just rolled out support for 360-degree live streams and spatial audio. You can play the demo link below through the Youtube app on your Android phone or tablet and turn around while holding the phone. Put on your favorite headphones and enjoy
Thanks for input on music! I was waiting to see some review on music input. So like, would u be able to enjoy the music sitting still? Or would u have to constantly move ur head to get the whole picture?
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