[v1ni]

Has anyone come across this? https://irislistenwell.com/

As a techie, I'm always trying to work out how things like this are achieved. I'm guessing it's just software EQ'ing/some kind of virtual surround sound preset, but in the sample music I threw at it I could definitely tell the difference in the sound. Jury's still out as to whether or not I actually "like" the sound, I can't fathom it out. It certainly seemed to bring out the background notes in the samples I listened to, though I don't think it was a case of just amplifying the frequencies!

 

[TronII]

I can't provide much feedback other than it seems like a virtual surround program; I use Android, not iOS.

 

[pinnahertz]

Iris. Hmmm.. The most interesting part of Iris is their marketing plan. Big flashy videos that say, basically, nothing. They extol its virtues vaguely, but never explain anything. The site encourages you do download their iOS app for "free". I did so, installed it, still....nothing! It collects your email address, and promises you'll get to hear 10 (yes, that's 10) of your favorite songs with Iris. But you don't. Yet. That's apparently still coming as they're still developing Iris. So the app does nothing but collect your email and register you. There were just over 2000 people "ahead of me" and 2 "behind me", whatever that useless statistic means.

What's prominent in it absence? Any demonstration at all of what Iris does, or is. The actors in the video react strongly to hearing it, but we don't get to yet. How hard would it be, if you're going to do it via an app, to post a couple of demos? If the people in the video are being honest with their reaction, then why can't we hear it? Or are the just acting? I'm voting for the latter, as Iris seems as yet to be vaporware.

So what actually IS the product? Well, it's a pair of white headphones that you can't buy yet. It's apparently some form of immersive audio process, that you can't buy or hear yet. And it's a process that somehow compelling and improves audio communication so much that Astin Martin will be using Iris in the Grand Prix! A little driving music, please?

So, Roll Up! Get your free app! Watch our motivational videos! Sign up to hold your place in line for the latest audio snake oil!

Well, it may or may not be snake oil, but this over-blown marketing plan wreaks of deception, and deliberately laid-on-thick expectation bias. So far Iris's most significant distinction as an audio product is that of the polish of its medicine show.

 

[v1ni]

Iris. Hmmm.. The most interesting part of Iris is their marketing plan. Big flashy videos that say, basically, nothing. They extol its virtues vaguely, but never explain anything. The site encourages you do download their iOS app for "free". I did so, installed it, still....nothing! It collects your email address, and promises you'll get to hear 10 (yes, that's 10) of your favorite songs with Iris. But you don't. Yet. That's apparently still coming as they're still developing Iris. So the app does nothing but collect your email and register you. There were just over 2000 people "ahead of me" and 2 "behind me", whatever that useless statistic means.

What's prominent in it absence? Any demonstration at all of what Iris does, or is. The actors in the video react strongly to hearing it, but we don't get to yet. How hard would it be, if you're going to do it via an app, to post a couple of demos? If the people in the video are being honest with their reaction, then why can't we hear it? Or are the just acting? I'm voting for the latter, as Iris seems as yet to be vaporware.

So what actually IS the product? Well, it's a pair of white headphones that you can't buy yet. It's apparently some form of immersive audio process, that you can't buy or hear yet. And it's a process that somehow compelling and improves audio communication so much that Astin Martin will be using Iris in the Grand Prix! A little driving music, please?

So, Roll Up! Get your free app! Watch our motivational videos! Sign up to hold your place in line for the latest audio snake oil!

Well, it may or may not be snake oil, but this over-blown marketing plan wreaks of deception, and deliberately laid-on-thick expectation bias. So far Iris's most significant distinction as an audio product is that of the polish of its medicine show.

I'd say check back in a few hours, there were 1200 in front of me when I signed up last week but when I woke the next day, I was "in".

Having just checked, I was able to record a demo of the app in use. I'm unsure how the sound will come across as I'm sure the video probably has some compression added, but either way, it should give an idea of what excitement is in store for you.

Link to Video Demo (OneDrive)

When listening through IEM, it seems to balance out the audio across both ears and gives a kind of "its behind you" feeling. You can probably tell I'm a bit pants at describing things, but it interests me from a tech point of view.

Is it the next "big thing"?
Will those headphones they're clearly lining up to sell, be winners?

 

[pinnahertz]

I got an email saying the wait is over, so I relaunched the ap and gave it permission to access my iTunes library. You can pick out individual songs to try, limited to 10. You can get more of your tracks (you already own and paid for) to play by inviting friends and registering, even more if you buy their headphones. Well, I buy no headphones sound-unheard, sorry. All of that is a major put-off for me.

But wait, there's more....

How does the glorious new process sound? Louder. There's a few dB of gain applied when turning the thing on, which is a well known way to win an A/B bake-off. Second, the channels swap. Left becomes right, and right becomes left. Again, pretty big gaff or cheat, either way, it's wrong. The result is music at first seems to jump out more with Iris on, but once you adjust for the additional gain (haven't measured, it's probably more that 3dB though), it's just a channel swap. No particular out-of-head, or in-head, or immersion effects. Tried on open headphones, closed headphones, and IEMs. Same observations.

This feels very scam-like. I'm not recommending it to anyone just to get access to more of my own songs. And I can turn up the volume and swap channels myself without all of this hype. Very disappointing, but predictable from the flashy web site, until your recognize its just another Wordpress site build from a template. And the idea of holding your own library hostage until you buy their cans or give up your friends is...well, IMO, just plain wrong.

Just what we need: Another "amazing process" to give the audio industry a bad name. Only this one is not subtle, like MQA, it's blatant.

 

[v1ni]

Thanks for the techie stuff I couldn’t put into words! I did wonder if there was some channel swapping going on!

It’s a startup with “big” plans (headphones) it would seem, I assumed that it was just gimmick wrapped in a nice looking package. Be interesting to see where this one goes.

 

[TronII]

I got an email saying the wait is over, so I relaunched the ap and gave it permission to access my iTunes library. You can pick out individual songs to try, limited to 10. You can get more of your tracks (you already own and paid for) to play by inviting friends and registering, even more if you buy their headphones. Well, I buy no headphones sound-unheard, sorry. All of that is a major put-off for me.

But wait, there's more....

How does the glorious new process sound? Louder. There's a few dB of gain applied when turning the thing on, which is a well known way to win an A/B bake-off. Second, the channels swap. Left becomes right, and right becomes left. Again, pretty big gaff or cheat, either way, it's wrong. The result is music at first seems to jump out more with Iris on, but once you adjust for the additional gain (haven't measured, it's probably more that 3dB though), it's just a channel swap. No particular out-of-head, or in-head, or immersion effects. Tried on open headphones, closed headphones, and IEMs. Same observations.

This feels very scam-like. I'm not recommending it to anyone just to get access to more of my own songs. And I can turn up the volume and swap channels myself without all of this hype. Very disappointing, but predictable from the flashy web site, until your recognize its just another Wordpress site build from a template. And the idea of holding your own library hostage until you buy their cans or give up your friends is...well, IMO, just plain wrong.

Just what we need: Another "amazing process" to give the audio industry a bad name. Only this one is not subtle, like MQA, it's blatant.

I figured it would be snake oil, but that's way worse than I expected, holy...

 

[castleofargh]

I got an email saying the wait is over, so I relaunched the ap and gave it permission to access my iTunes library. You can pick out individual songs to try, limited to 10. You can get more of your tracks (you already own and paid for) to play by inviting friends and registering, even more if you buy their headphones. Well, I buy no headphones sound-unheard, sorry. All of that is a major put-off for me.

But wait, there's more....

How does the glorious new process sound? Louder. There's a few dB of gain applied when turning the thing on, which is a well known way to win an A/B bake-off. Second, the channels swap. Left becomes right, and right becomes left. Again, pretty big gaff or cheat, either way, it's wrong. The result is music at first seems to jump out more with Iris on, but once you adjust for the additional gain (haven't measured, it's probably more that 3dB though), it's just a channel swap. No particular out-of-head, or in-head, or immersion effects. Tried on open headphones, closed headphones, and IEMs. Same observations.

This feels very scam-like. I'm not recommending it to anyone just to get access to more of my own songs. And I can turn up the volume and swap channels myself without all of this hype. Very disappointing, but predictable from the flashy web site, until your recognize its just another Wordpress site build from a template. And the idea of holding your own library hostage until you buy their cans or give up your friends is...well, IMO, just plain wrong.

Just what we need: Another "amazing process" to give the audio industry a bad name. Only this one is not subtle, like MQA, it's blatant.

On the website the most technical sentence was something vague about phase... That triggered my spider skepticism and made me lose all personal curiosity. You took one for the community, thank you for your service, your email, some songs and whatever the app is sharing.

"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you".

 

[bigshot]

I think timing based DSPs work better with speakers than headphones.

 

[pinnahertz]

Wish I had a bit more time to do this, but perhaps someone else will. It wouldn't be very hard to analyze what Iris is doing. You'd need it to play a test file with some analytical content like single-channel tones, sweeps, pink noise, etc., then play that back via the device and squirt the headphone jack into an input for analysis. You'd end up with a number on the gain change, channel flip, and perhaps a profile of anything else going on in the way of cross-feed, or whatever it is. Like I say, I'm completely swamped this weekend, but perhaps I'll get to it next week if someone else doesn't do it first.

It's one reason I haven't burned up my 10 free songs yet! One of those songs may be a bunch-o-test signals.

 

[gregorio]

The alarm bells ring as soon as you hear marketing BS like: "Our goal is to take you back to the room where the music was recorded". - Because after all the takes are edited and stitched together, artificial reverb and/or other processing is applied for the very purpose of making sure that it does NOT sound as it did in "the room where it was recorded". Therefore, pretty much the very last thing anyone would want (and especially the artists and engineers who created the recording) is software or hardware that achieved the stated goal!

Personally, I'd need some pretty exceptional evidence before I'd even start to consider the possibility that this product is anything other than pure snake-oil.

G

 

[bigshot]

It sounds to me like they are slapping some sort of sythesized room ambience over the top of the recording. That might sound good for some recordings, but nowhere near all of them.

 

[Kalli]

I'm just curious about what you guys think about that approach in general and possible use cases.
Official Website

There is also an app to test the algorithm with any headphones/speakers connected to your smartphone.
Android App
iOS App

 

[sander99]

The way they talk about mp3 versus CD versus LP, and "restoring information lost" and the talk about "going back to the room where the music was recorded", and the fact that they don't say anything about what exactly they do with the audio to me are all indicaters that a big load of marketing BS is presented here.
If they don't say what exactly they are doing with the audio then what else can we say about it?

 

[bigshot]

They look like reasonably nice headphones. almost 40 hours of battery life. Bluetooth. An app to EQ and some sort of phase DSP. If they sound good, they should do the job.