[Roll]

I post on Kickstarter:

Checked CSR8675 Specs

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/csr8675

States: Bluetooth Version 5.0 and aptX HD


also ORA did talk to the man as posted already-

ORA Graphene Audio Creator: Yes PSB’s phones are very well thought out. I just had a sit down with Paul over the weekend - NAD and PSB are also Canadian companies. Paul was very helpful and gave us some great insights.



NAD HP70 and PSB M4U 8 use the recently released Qualcomm CSR8675 Bluetooth Audio SoC

https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...psb-m4u-8-wireless-noise-canceling-headphones

"Both headphones are now aptX HD enabled Bluetooth 5.0, but that's just the start. The chip's 24-bit DSP has allowed him to fine tune his RoomFeel curve, and the USB port can take computer audio to 24/48 rates. Paul didn't use the built-in noise canceling circuits as he feels digital implementation has too much latency to work well and opted for fully analog feed-forward and feed-back circuits."

 

[robert-eric]

Hey ORA team: I’m curious if you’d be open to sharing a bit more about the Qualcomm chip you chose and why you chose it? I am very impressed and thankful as a customer that it appears you’re valuing performance over margins. What was the performance specs that made you go with it etc?

Sure! Since we decided to go with aptX, it seemed like we should shoot for aptX HD. aptX can do 16bit/44.1kHz while aptX HD can do 24bit/48kHz. aptX is only available on the Qualcomm chips but we were considering the Qualcomm product line anyhow since they have a very good reputation. After checking out a few designs and talking to a couple designers, it seemed like the 867X series was the way to go for sound quality and reliability. Reliability is a huge concern for us so using a solution that has been used successfully in other high-end designs makes us feel safer - the last thing we want is to have to delay due to debugging issues. An added bonus is that the 867X series has support for a lot of the features we want to include - in particular the gesture control capacitive touch-pad. Our goal is to showcase the sound quality of our GrapheneQ drivers and we don't want the electronics to get in the way of what our technology is capable of.

As far as the margins, the chip is a bit of a killer but the goal of the kickstarter is to launch our brand and let the world experience the Graphene technology we have been working on. We have some investment already and over the next couple months we are going around to potential investors, trying to raise a Series A. That is to say that the the money from Kickstarter is not for paying salaries or for operational expenses. We have the luxury of being able to apply it to scaling our Graphene manufacturing, optimizing our material & our driver, and getting the product design perfect. All these things will be valuable to us moving forward and the most valuable thing of all will be having a kick-ass product that we can really get behind. Cheaping out on the chip would really just be selling ourselves short in the long run.

 

[gr8soundz]

Sure! Since we decided to go with aptX, it seemed like we should shoot for aptX HD.

Cheaping out on the chip would really just be selling ourselves short in the long run.

I wish more companies would use that philosophy. I've seen far too many new aptx only devices from manufacturers claiming their bluetooth products are audiophile quality.

 

[Room Tone]

Wish you could offer a W1-chip version for the Apple crowd. Even as a paid upgrade; I backed the Kickstarter forever ago! I really love the convenience of moving seamlessly between my iPad, iPhone, Mac Mini and work MacBook Pro. It really makes portable audio a continuous experience. I know, I know, pie in the sky stuff, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

Regardless, I’m super excited for my ORAs! Maybe now I can take a good enough headphone on the road that I won’t have to lug my MrSpeakers Æons around! (I have yet to hear anything under $1000 that can match them, but that was before Audeze started dumping LCD-2 for less than US$750 last month.)

 

[AlwaysForward]

Sure! Since we decided to go with aptX, it seemed like we should shoot for aptX HD. aptX can do 16bit/44.1kHz while aptX HD can do 24bit/48kHz. aptX is only available on the Qualcomm chips but we were considering the Qualcomm product line anyhow since they have a very good reputation. After checking out a few designs and talking to a couple designers, it seemed like the 867X series was the way to go for sound quality and reliability. Reliability is a huge concern for us so using a solution that has been used successfully in other high-end designs makes us feel safer - the last thing we want is to have to delay due to debugging issues. An added bonus is that the 867X series has support for a lot of the features we want to include - in particular the gesture control capacitive touch-pad. Our goal is to showcase the sound quality of our GrapheneQ drivers and we don't want the electronics to get in the way of what our technology is capable of.

As far as the margins, the chip is a bit of a killer but the goal of the kickstarter is to launch our brand and let the world experience the Graphene technology we have been working on. We have some investment already and over the next couple months we are going around to potential investors, trying to raise a Series A. That is to say that the the money from Kickstarter is not for paying salaries or for operational expenses. We have the luxury of being able to apply it to scaling our Graphene manufacturing, optimizing our material & our driver, and getting the product design perfect. All these things will be valuable to us moving forward and the most valuable thing of all will be having a kick-ass product that we can really get behind. Cheaping out on the chip would really just be selling ourselves short in the long run.

That’s so AWESOME! Thanks for replying! So many of us here are fanatics for AAC which is often left out. Are you going to be supporting AAC?

 

[Roll]

Mention from Ora:

"So far nothing has changed with the cosmetics of the headphones. The only possible change is that we are considering using a product called "liquid wood" for the ear cups. It is an injection-mouldable wood pulp material that produces much more consistent results than CNCing wood blocks. It is also denser and can provide better acoustic properties (based on our models). Liquid wood (aka arboform) looks like wood so the cosmetics will be the same but we believe it can provide an improved result."


McGill alumni poised to blow out speaker industry
http://www.mcgilltribune.com/sci-tech/mcgill-alumni-poised-to-blow-out-speaker-industry-112017/

 

[AlwaysForward]

New update on the Kickstarter page!

 

[michsu]

How do they compare to Periodic Audio Be? People using these IEMs say they are better than most of their headphones. That's what I have right now. The frequency response for these seem to be better but if the material better than berrylium drivers? Thanks. If so, I'll join the campaign too.

 

[AlwaysForward]

How do they compare to Periodic Audio Be? People using these IEMs say they are better than most of their headphones. That's what I have right now. The frequency response for these seem to be better but if the material better than berrylium drivers? Thanks. If so, I'll join the campaign too.

Well the comparison between GrapheneQ and Beryllium is what makes GrapheneQ so interesting! On paper, it's a better material.

These aren't out yet so no one can compare. However, do keep in mind that you're asking about IEM vs Over-ear so they're going to be very different based on that alone.

 

[michsu]

But that's what I'm saying though.. these IEMs have excellent reviews for only $299.. the reviews say beats out most sub-$1000 headphones as in quality and frequency response.. 10-45khz.. I think those were the stats.. but these graphene goes below and above those..

 

[AlwaysForward]

But that's what I'm saying though.. these IEMs have excellent reviews for only $299.. the reviews say beats out most sub-$1000 headphones as in quality and frequency response.. 10-45khz.. I think those were the stats.. but these graphene goes below and above those..

Well we’ll find when they’re released but they should have some parallels in that regard

 

[michsu]

Google says beryllium is 6 times stronger than steel.. the campaign says graphene is 200 times singer than steel.. hmmm.. maybe this one will be better..

 

[AlwaysForward]

Google says beryllium is 6 times stronger than steel.. the campaign says graphene is 200 times singer than steel.. hmmm.. maybe this one will be better..

There’s a bit more to evaluation of speaker material property than outright strength. Jump to page 129 for more science on this material:
http://www.gotomylis.com/

 

[robert-eric]

How do they compare to Periodic Audio Be? People using these IEMs say they are better than most of their headphones. That's what I have right now. The frequency response for these seem to be better but if the material better than berrylium drivers? Thanks. If so, I'll join the campaign too.

Interesting stuff. I hadn't seen the Periodic IEM lineup yet. I think this might be Dan Wiggins most recent project. GrapheneQ compares favourably to Beryllium when one considers the overall figure of merit. Beryllium is stiffer (Be = 300GPa, GQ = <130GPa) but GrapheneQ is lighter (GQ = 1.0 g/cm^3, Be = 1.85 g/cm^3) and GrapheneQ has much better damping (GQ = 0.08 tan∂, Be = 0.002 tan∂). If you compare the overall "Figure of Merit"(FOM), a metric used to determine how well a material will perform in loudspeaker applications, GrapheneQ gets a 6.2 while Be gets a 6.8... Its very close, although the FOM doesn't take into account the damping.

Basically I would say that GrapheneQ is at least as good as Beryllium but definitely different. GQ has other advantages such as being easier to form into different geometries and, of course, Be is highly toxic to work with. Here's a chart that compares several different materials. Its really difficult to know how something will sound just from these parameters, though, because they all interact to help determine overall sound quality.

 

[robert-eric]

Google says beryllium is 6 times stronger than steel.. the campaign says graphene is 200 times singer than steel.. hmmm.. maybe this one will be better..

Hi Michsu! Pristine Graphene is 200x stronger than steel. It has a Young's Modulus of 1TPa... That is pretty damn amazing. GrapheneQ is our proprietary material that stacks layers of Graphene and crosslinks it into a laminate material. GrapheneQ is still mostly Graphene but we do make some trade-offs to achieve other benefits. For example, we can form GrapheneQ into cones and domes for dynamic loudspeakers, and we can deposit relatively thick membranes (15µm to 300µm). This makes the material effective over larger surface areas so we can make things like 4" speakers or 40mm headphone diaphragms.