Out Of Your Head - new virtual surround simulator

[darinf]

  Darin, been following this thread w a great deal of interest, and I have an observation and a question.  
 
It seems to me that a number of products, specifically 9 dof sensors from companies such as Hillcrest Laboratories which provide the capability for affordable, lightweight, turn key headtracking for video game 
/virtual reality simulators such as the Occulus Rift headset. Given that these sensor and software packages are roughly the size of a quarter, have gyroscopes, acelerometers, and magmetometers each of which tracks orientation in three dimensions, are powered by micro usb, have software which works with low lstency in a windows environment, and claim near turnkey packages to assist developers for adapting their product to a variety of applications, wouldn't this be a natural way to upgrade Ooyh to a Smythe Level product.  
 
In other words, do you plan to add head trackin capability to OOYH given how easy it could be now that these products are coming into the marketplace?

Hi @phoenixdogfan , thanks for posting.
 
Although head tracking would be a welcome feature for Out Of Your Head, to be honest, there are other things we are working on before even looking at head tracking (iOS/Android versions, gaming version, user measurement capability, Atmos/3D audio support, etc.). For many Realiser owners I know, very few of them seem to actually use the head tracker. Yes, when people first buy it, they use the head tracker, but after becoming familiar with the sound of virtual speakers, I think the head tracker is less useful. For me, I just don't need it in order to get a solid sonic image. The other issue is that I have been trying to avoid getting into the hardware business. The logistics of inventory, shipping, returns, repairs, etc. would add significantly to the cost of Out Of Your Head. But, I have looked into it and may be something added in the future.

 

[glorkaglickflic]

Let me ask this question.  I have Stax SR 507s.  I was tempted to purchase a pair of Stax  404 Sigmas.  Obviously, the drivers in the 507s are superior to the Sigma drivers.  With this system, would it make sense to purchase the Sigmas or just use my current 507s?

 

[dmbr]

Darin and other users,
I can't seem to get WASAPI (event) working properly on either of my machines (Windows 7 64-bit).

In Foobar2k it will occassionally (often, really) play noise and static when I start playback. In Jriver Media Center it simply will not play.

I'm a foobar user, so I'm more concerned with getting it to work properly than at all.

Help, please?

 

[olegausany]

Did you enable and configure resampler plugin in foobar DSP manager?

 

[phoenixdogfan]

By "user measurement capability" do you mean finding a way for customizing the speaker setups to an individual's personal HRTF without having to go to Sandiego and have it measured in each speaker/room set up.

Obviously, if there were a way for a person to have his personal HRTF captured once in his hometown, at, say, an audiologist's office, have it digitally specified, emailed to you and have it married up to the room and speaker system transfer function, this would also be a huge upgrade.

 

[darinf]

Darin and other users,
I can't seem to get WASAPI (event) working properly on either of my machines (Windows 7 64-bit).

In Foobar2k it will occassionally (often, really) play noise and static when I start playback. In Jriver Media Center it simply will not play.

I'm a foobar user, so I'm more concerned with getting it to work properly than at all.

Help, please?

I just tried the setting in this earlier post: http://www.head-fi.org/t/689299/out-of-your-head-new-virtual-surround-simulator/360#post_11193617
on two different Windows machines using JRiver and WASAPI worked fine on both.
 
Please make sure all the settings match the screen shot I posted int he earlier thread.
 
Basically you have to make sure all audio is resampled down/up to 48KHz/24bit sampling rate and 7.1 channels of audio even if there is no content on all 8 channels. (At least in JRiver) I am not sure about the settings in Foobar.
 
Of course, you can always contact me directly and we can set up a phone call or remote control session to sort it out.

 

[dmbr]

dupe

 

[dmbr]

  I just tried the setting in this earlier post: http://www.head-fi.org/t/689299/out-of-your-head-new-virtual-surround-simulator/360#post_11193617
on two different Windows machines using JRiver and WASAPI worked fine on both.
 
Please make sure all the settings match the screen shot I posted int he earlier thread.
 
Basically you have to make sure all audio is resampled down/up to 48KHz/24bit sampling rate and 7.1 channels of audio even if there is no content on all 8 channels. (At least in JRiver) I am not sure about the settings in Foobar.
 
Of course, you can always contact me directly and we can set up a phone call or remote control session to sort it out.

Ah, I only have it resampling up to 4 channels...any idea of how to get it up to 7.1 with foobar? As far as I know, 5.1 is the highest number of channels available with upmixing components/plug-ins.

 

[edwardsean]

  Hi @phoenixdogfan , thanks for posting.
 
Although head tracking would be a welcome feature for Out Of Your Head, to be honest, there are other things we are working on before even looking at head tracking (iOS/Android versions, gaming version, user measurement capability, Atmos/3D audio support, etc.). For many Realiser owners I know, very few of them seem to actually use the head tracker. Yes, when people first buy it, they use the head tracker, but after becoming familiar with the sound of virtual speakers, I think the head tracker is less useful. For me, I just don't need it in order to get a solid sonic image. The other issue is that I have been trying to avoid getting into the hardware business. The logistics of inventory, shipping, returns, repairs, etc. would add significantly to the cost of Out Of Your Head. But, I have looked into it and may be something added in the future.

Two things just real quick:
1) When I was looking into the Realiser one of the selling points was the head-tracking. It was explained to me as necessary or else, "you have these huge speakers 'swinging around the room' every time you move your head." I thought, "Awesome! That's actually what I want." I don't want head-tracking. I want the speakers to move with me. No more having the stereo image collapse every time I move my head. Ultimately, I don't think recreating speaker-listening, in and of itself, is the goal, right? We want huge, "room-filling," immersive high quality sound like you get from speakers in headphone format. And, if, along the way, you can improve on some things that real-world speakers can't do, i think those of us using OOYH should thing OOTB (out of the box).
 
2) "iOS/Android versions, gaming version, user measurement capability, Atmos/3D audio support"--woohoo! Yes, please! 
 
ps. This all made me think what it would've been like to try and engineer "reverse head-tracking" for real-world speakers. You would need some Hollywood computer-controlled dollies with articulating hydraulics to move the speaker to keep position relative to your ears every time you move your head. 

 

[olegausany]

 I just tried the setting in this earlier post: http://www.head-fi.org/t/689299/out-of-your-head-new-virtual-surround-simulator/360#post_11193617
on two different Windows machines using JRiver and WASAPI worked fine on both.
 
Please make sure all the settings match the screen shot I posted int he earlier thread.
 
Basically you have to make sure all audio is resampled down/up to 48KHz/24bit sampling rate and 7.1 channels of audio even if there is no content on all 8 channels. (At least in JRiver) I am not sure about the settings in Foobar.
 
Of course, you can always contact me directly and we can set up a phone call or remote control session to sort it out.

Ah, I only have it resampling up to 4 channels...any idea of how to get it up to 7.1 with foobar? As far as I know, 5.1 is the highest number of channels available with upmixing components/plug-ins.

You need to use either provided PPHS resampler Or SoX plugin set to 48000, there's no channels changes in foobar. I prefer SoX while difference is small

 

[edwardsean]

HI. I edited my post above to avoid confusion. I was trying to say that, personally, I don't want head-tracking. 
 
Also, Darin, will the new SOFA standard for HRTF mean anything for what you're doing, or is that completely incompatible? http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/aes-settles-sofa-3d-hrtf-datasets

 

[darinf]

  Let me ask this question.  I have Stax SR 507s.  I was tempted to purchase a pair of Stax  404 Sigmas.  Obviously, the drivers in the 507s are superior to the Sigma drivers.  With this system, would it make sense to purchase the Sigmas or just use my current 507s?

I think most people are not familiar with the differences between the 507 and 404. I have not heard the 404, but I have the 407's. I am not sure what difference there is between the 404 and 507's. I imagine that's also why you haven't gotten much of a response here. You might try asking in the Stax thread.

 

[darinf]

By "user measurement capability" do you mean finding a way for customizing the speaker setups to an individual's personal HRTF without having to go to Sandiego and have it measured in each speaker/room set up.

Obviously, if there were a way for a person to have his personal HRTF captured once in his hometown, at, say, an audiologist's office, have it digitally specified, emailed to you and have it married up to the room and speaker system transfer function, this would also be a huge upgrade.

Not exactly what I meant.
 
What I meant is that some day I envision selling microphones and software that let the user make their own measurements of speakers and rooms. You would still have to be present in the room with the speakers in order to do a measurement, but you wouldn't have to come to San Diego to have me do it. You could do your own custom measurements provided you can find a location with a speaker setup worth measuring.
 
Yes, it would be awesome if there was a way to apply someone's HRTF and apply it to a room measurement. I've thought about how that could be done, but so far I have not figured out how that's possible. That would be amazing!

 

[darinf]

  HI. I edited my post above to avoid confusion. I was trying to say that, personally, I don't want head-tracking. 
 
Also, Darin, will the new SOFA standard for HRTF mean anything for what you're doing, or is that completely incompatible? http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/aes-settles-sofa-3d-hrtf-datasets

Yes, that SOFA standard is very interesting. To be honest I don;t know enough about it to see how it can be applied to Out Of Your Head, but it does seem like it's heading towards what I mentioned in @phoenixdogfan post above about being able to get your own HRTF measured and apply it to any speaker and room measurement. How cool would that be!

 

[dmbr]

You need to use either provided PPHS resampler Or SoX plugin set to 48000, there's no channels changes in foobar. I prefer SoX while difference is small

I already am using sox at 48000. I'm also using the "stereo to 4 channel" DSP.

Edit: the problem causing the noise/static was that I was outputting to WASAPI at 24 bits not 32.

Now the only issue is that when sounds play from outside of foobar, Foobar playback stutters and eventually stops.

I use Razer Surround for gaming and leave it as my default device because of that...I'll do some investigating there.