I’m now 8 days out from my 3D Soundshop in person PRIR capture with 3D SS proprietor/A16 whisperer John Teixeira. If anyone is at all thinking about traveling to New Jersey for an in person PRIR measurement, my advice to you would be to “run, don’t walk“ and most definitely do it!
I arrived to the studio in Lyndhurst, NJ(less than 15 minutes outside of Newark, NJ) at 10 a.m. and left hours later with a host of meticulously captured measurements that afforded me awesome A16 virtual listening experiences in PCM, DTS:X, Dolby Atmos AND Auro 3D(!). I know have an unimaginable collection of listening rooms ranging from stereo to 5.1 and 7.1, to 13.1 Auro 3D to 12.1.10 Dolby Atmos. Prior to meeting John, we had several phone, text and email conversations in preparation for my visit. He asked for various pieces of information, such as the distance from the floor to my ear while sitting and standing, in addition to asking what my goals were for the session. It came as no surprise to me that John was the same genuinely thoughtful, professional and A16 obsessed person that I had gotten to know in our previous interactions.
Once we started to gear up to take the measurements, the first thing that impressed me was just how exacting the process was in just the placement of the microphones in my ear canals. TBH, I can’t imagine how even that part of the process could have been so precisely done with just me working alone with a handheld mirror. Next up, John tested my in ear microphones to make sure that they were working well(they were) before proceeding with taking the measurements. With each measurement, he made sure that the head tracker and set top device were perfectly aligned before beginning what proved to be a multitude of individual capture angles. The speaker angles, of course, were all dead on according to 5.1, 7.1, Dolby Atmos and Auro 3D official specs, as John did perfect speaker angle setups and calibrations before getting started with each series of captures. Along the way, he also did perfect HPEQ measurements for my two sets of headphones, a modified Sennheiser HD800 and Hifiman HE1000v2, respectively.
John’s follow up with me since then has been above and beyond, which apparently, is the only way that John knows to be in providing exemplary customer service and support. As John predicted, I started out as a client and left as a friend. To steal a quote from “This Is Spinal Tap,” John and 3D Soundshop go up to 11!
