How many did you guys do when you got measured at one of the audio shows?
It depends how you count them. In my demo they measured a 7.1.4 speaker system for three lookangles (only azimuth 0
°, 30° left, 30° right, no elevation), in a way you could say they measured 12 x 3 = 36 lookangles. The A16 can do 16 speakers, and for azimuth and elevation 5 lookangles per speaker, so in a way you could say it can do 5 x 16 = 80 lookangles. Note I don't say at this point what you can do with this or how it is related to what is being said in the update, I am just brainstorming here.
My understanding is theA-16 head tracker won't go any where near that far.
In the normal A16 operation as they described so far the compensation for head movement works for up to 30
°, but the actual head-tracking device of the A16 can handle [Edit: detect] much more: 360 degree tracking on both axes (mentioned on the kickstarter page).
"The screen directly below this shows the information for a 32-loudspeaker dummy head BRIR
extracted from a BBC public domain SOFA depository. This file contains 32 different loudspeakers, as
defined by ITU-R each captured over 24 look angles covering +/-180 degrees. Use of this type of PRIR
file with the A16 will therefore provide full 360 degree head tracking"
I don't know what exactly they are gonna do with this, but in any case: even if the A16 does not do something with all these together at once, at least it is kind of a set of building blocks with wich you can put together a virtual speakersystem with certain lookangles (choose a suitable subset). But who knows indeed what the Smyth brothers have up their sleeve.
Brainstorming further: Now I am thinking for example if you put only 6 speakers around you at ear height and regular angles between them (60°), and the speakers are all identical and the acoustics of the room symmetrical (let's for simplicity say a round (standing cylinder shaped) room. Then you could simulate a sound coming from such a speaker from all horizontal directions. starting with the position exactly at one speakers location, you can interpolate using that speakers HRTF up to 30° right to it's position (where effectively you use it's measurement 30° right), then switch to the next speaker (that sounds identical) now using it's 30° left measurement, going further interpolating up to it's 0° measurement, etc. This idea can be used to provide 360° azimuth headtracking [Edit: or rather: to provide the correction for 360° head motion, for in the context of this post the difference between tracking head movement and compensating for it is important]. What I am now describing for 1 speaker can also be done for 9 speakers simultaniously (the 9 "ground" speakers of a 9.1.6 setup). All the necessary underlying ingredients are there in the A16, it is just a matter of programming it. Maybe this idea can be generalised to 3D to 360° on both axis. If you use 12 speakers oriented as being in the mid-points of the planes of a regular dodecahedron.
[Edit: The measurements for both the 6 and 12 virtual speakers in these examples can of course be done with the single-speaker measurement method, measuring the same speaker with your head in different orientations. In fact thinking about this makes you aware that for example 3 look angles per speaker for 6 speakers or 18 lookangles for one speaker can in fact be the same thing, it is just a matter of how you look at it. (Only there can be a difference if speakers are in different locations in the room, where the acoustics play out differently.)][Edit: actually we don't need 18 but only 12 lookangles in the example with 6 speakers, the lookangle 30° right for each speaker equals the lookangle 30° left for the next speaker.]
Afaik, that is with two A16 units working together. The A8 did work in tandem up to 16 channels:
Now I know this is not exactly the same as what you are talking about, it is just an observation of something that could be expoited in some way: since one A16 can do a full simulation for 2 persons it could in fact simulate 32 speakers (just add the two headphone signals together), only with the limitation that in total only 16 input channels can be used (so for example at any given moment just use 16 of the 32 speakers, but not the same 16 speakers all the time, or send each input signal to 2 speakers).
