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Single Speaker Unit Delivers Surround Sound
Makarand writes "A one-speaker home theater system that is able to deliver surround sound
has been unveiled by Nirotek America (Torrance, CA).
The single speaker unit actually contains five individual speakers packed
horizontally into a single case. The surround sound effect is achieved
by playing some sophisticated psychoacoustic trickery on the human brain.
Realistic surround sound from movies and stereo CDs can be obtained as long as listeners
are
at least six feet away from the speaker unit and the unit stands near the front edge of
whatever surface it is placed on. The unit is priced at around $799 and USA Today has a
review."
/me adjusts his AFDB
...actually beeing there. Real Reality beats Virtual Reality nine times out of ten.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
An $800 ventriloquist?
This is pretty cool. I can see this technology being put to good use on a handheld gaming device or even handheld pc where space is a premium and good sound only enhances the gaming experience.
yeah, and it's used by the agents to keep the human race enslaved and trapped into the matrix, by controlling their brains even more...
Actually, having 4 speakers really sucks.
Wires trailing all around... if this does
work and gets mass produced, it will be the
end of those clumsy 5+1 speaker combos.
Bring it on!
I'm not sure I believe that using electronic trickery (presumably phase differences and relative volume) can create a realistic surround-sound volume-of-space for people to sit in.
Even 5,6,7-speaker systems struggle to produce a large coherent area where the sound "sounds natural"...
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
try to seperate your cash from your wallet all while trying to convince you that the laws of physics have been broken specifically for this product.
yet another unsolicited self correction. the kode base is definitely maturing.
you know where to look, who to consult with/trust in? see you there?
I've seen a TV that claimed to be able to fake surround sound by bouncing directed sound waves off the walls at different angles. Of course, that one only would have worked if the TV and the viewer were in certain places in a rectangular room.
Does this work for people with hearing problems in one ear? And if so, does it matter when the hearing loss started to occur? (i.e., congenital problem vs. problem that developed with age)
I'm asking this on the off chance that someone here is working on a PhD or something and can answer this...
Bose aren't that great. Compared to the normal hi-fi stuff you buy in non-specialist places, they're pretty good. But they're not the be-all and end-all of home theatre systems.
And yes, I've been to one of their demos.
These "head related transfer functions" take account of differences in the time at which a sound arrives at each side of the head, as well as subtle distortions caused by the shape of each ear.
the subjects used to test this new gadget were very very ugly...
something like that? lookout bullow. all the phonIE greed/fear/ego based ?pr? ?firm? scriptdead pretense/hypenosys does not help/change anything.
you can almost hear the fear?
I guess the first thing that comes to mind, is that why would anyone spend $799 on a single speaker, when there are cheaper and (maybe) better speaker sets (including amp) out there? Well, apartment dwellers, especially city dwellers, this is great news! Great quality surround sound without the mess! Arcade Games, including pinball machines could benefit from this system (albeit a cheaper version). Oh, and fuck Bose, fuck their tiny little speaker, fuck them in their stupid asses! :)
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
It's surely a gimmick? If you're using HRTFs, you don't need 5 speakers in there. We've only got two ears so you only need two speakers!
Proper 3D sound has been around for years, the best being from Sensaura, as licensed on the Xbox and most PC sound chips.
Does this work for deaf people?
I'll be dissapointed if there's no accessiblity features for the deaf.
I still cant figure out why anyone would bother to buy it. I'm sure all your guests would *LOVE* to hear about how it does this with only one speaker. YAWN......another bose wave radio in disguise....
I'd like to see a company simply return to the days when radio was king and make a kick ass old fashioned table cathedral style radio that uses tube audio and isnt some cheap "reproduction" made with slave labor in Indonesia. If done correctly all the radiophiles would get it in a flash.
The single speaker unit actually contains five individual speakers
What's the news??
I want my karma, and I want it now!
Has somebody actually tested their 3.2.1 GS system, or its predecessor? They claim these systems can create a 5.1 experience using only 2 speakers and a bass box. And the system doesn't seem to depend on reflection on the side walls.
> The single speaker unit actually contains five individual
> speakers
In other news, auto manufacturers have released a one wheeled car that handles every bit as good as a four wheeled car. The one wheeled unit actually contains 4 individual wheels...
Years ago, Sony did a Dolby Prologic speaker system where the rear speakers were connected using infrared. One speaker was powered, and had the IR sensor, with the other speaker connected with ordinary speaker cable (could just be cheap shitty stuff, 'cos it's only for rears). OK, so you needed a socket nearby and one bit of cable, but there was no cable running from the TV to behind the sofa.
This sounds like those guys that come up to you in a white van and try to sell you 'hi quality' stereo equipment for 10% of the 'cost'.
If you hae never experienced it, here it is.
It has happened to me personally, three times, by the same white van.
First we see motorized unicycles... now we are seeing single-speaker units that deliver surround sound. What is next in this circus show of singularity?!
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
Can somebody describe how natural sound is perceived by the human ear and what is needed to reproduce it as close as possible to the original sound?
Wanted : A Signature.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I really hope they didn't take six feet under too seriously.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
The Head Related Transfer Function is, well, head related -- it depends on the shape of your head. The problem with this approach is that you are limited in having to use an approximate average. While left-right imaging can be still excellent, front-back imaging usually is below par of a discrete system. The effect is more realistic with the specific HRTF of the listener, but obviously that's not practical.
As an aside, you can check out this interesting (if dated) stereo dipole demo with only two speakers right in front of you that have minimal separation between them but can produce the illusion of extreme left-right (make sure to set up according to the readme first or it won't work).
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
The whole satellite speaker thing is based on stupidity, as is this. Since all the sound is coming from the same speaker, just time-adjusted to pretend it is coming from another speaker, what you have is a mushy mass of sound coming from one speaker. Hardly what I expect when I want good sound quality.
Where is the common sense here? I can tell where sound is coming from by the difference in time it takes the sound to reach both ears. If the sound is coming from one speaker, there is no way to make it take a different length of time to reach one ear vs. the other. Therefore, all the computers in the world can't fool my ear with one speaker. Dumbasses (those who make it and those who buy it).
I've developed a new system of eating where we attach a computer to a stove, and using 10,000,000 calculations a second, taking into account the shape of the human mouth and the microscopic structure of the human tongue, can adjust the timing and heat of the burner or oven to make food taste 30-50% better. It costs about twice the price of a standard range, but those who've tried it say food cooked on our range tastes fantastic!
I just wish some of the simpler features on pro audio equipment would work it's way down to consumer level stuff. Companies have no real incentive to clean up the sound since they can sell snake oil fixes for audio quality problems *cough*monster cable*cough*. Simply using balanced audio connections on all pre-amp connections would reduce a lot of noise coming from the usual mess of cables behind most peoples home theater systems. Moving the power supplies for the components away from any audio proccessing circutry and shielding them, Further reducing noise. Many suround sound systems would also benifit GREATLY from a simple user adjustable delay on each channel to help compensate for an odd speaker placement. Home and car audio has to be the biggest snake oil industry today. I know I'm glad I've worked with pro level equipment running concerts and such. Really opens your eyes to what needs to be there for a good clear sound.
Well, it's pretty easy to "create a 5.1 experience" as 5.1 is a complete fucking waste of time. The only surround sound system with any merit whatsoever was Ambisonic, and that died a death (except for it's wonderful Soundfield microphone) well over a decade ago.
Dolby and all the others can fuck off back to the pointless hype-driven marketing swamp that they sprang from.
Christ on crutches!
That was classic intercourse!
I don't know the details of this particular setup, but in theory since you only have two ears, it is posssible to recreate any soundstage with only two speakers if the listener's HRTF is known. One thing you need to do is take into account the crosstalk (left speaker to right ear and the reverse) and other stuff. There's a lot more to this than timing issues.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
First of all, this is not a "one-speaker" solution at all - it is several speakers in one box. I suppose it depends on whether you think of "speaker" as referring to the mechanism for converting electrical impulses into acoustic pressure waves by means of a moving diaphragm, or the cabinet containing one or more of such devices .....
..... meaning you know which side a sound is coming from {left or right} but you can't actually tell whether a sound is coming from ahead or behind unless you cheat and move your head around. Even that won't work if you're wearing headphones. And since when you're watching telly, you are looking at the picture, your brain is getting enough clues from the visuals to work out where the sound should be coming from. So one speaker should be plenty! I'm sticking with my old telly with its 51cm., 4:3 screen and monophonic sound {though it has a separate woofer and tweeter}. It has a SCART socket and that is all that matters to me. I'll replace it when it breaks and not before.
But how many speakers do you need anyway? I mean, you've only got two ears, for crying out loud
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
although slightly different than any of the payper liesense programs/gadgets you may be accustombed to, the ppr, & newclear power initiatives are surprisingly easy to comprehend, once you:
consult with/trust in yOUR creator.... get some more oxygen on yOUR brain. get ready to see the light.
couldn't be simpler?
This is going to please anyone who's trying to set up a surround-sound system while sharing with their wife/partner/significant others. While we geeks think nothing of running miles of cable through the living room ("it adds character!"), all too often the special lady in our lives takes offence to this. Particularly when you use decent meaty cable rather than pathetic 1mm string.
:)
;)
5.1 systems were bad enough for this, but when you've got a 6.1 amp and you're also a co-ax out from your PC, the front room can quickly turn into spaghetti junction
Can't really see it sounding as good though
So, it's NOT a "single speaker." It's FIVE speakers. They just all happen to reside in the same cabinet.
Nothing to see here, move along...
I'm surprised no one ever seems to mention the binarual method of recording and playback when it comes to surround sound.
The main techniques used by humans to locate the direction of sound are: the volume of the sound, the phase difference between the sound hitting each ear at slighlty different times and the effect that the head, ears, body have on altering the frequency makeup of the sound.
The way to recreate this is to use a dummy head with miniature microphones placed in each ear of the dummy to record whatever sounds you want and then to play that recording back over headphones.
The dummy head recreates all the subtle phase and frequency effects that a real human head would in the real environment and the headphones allow that recording to be delivered to each ear free of the distorting effects that loudspeakers are prone to have(room effects, cross channel problems, phase problems etc).
Checkout http://www.binaural.com/ for MP3 samples of this technique.
The realism of binaural is simply staggering when used with the right headphones. No multi-channel surround sound that I have ever heard comes anywhere near close. It is so realistic that it can have you looking around to locate the source of the sound to make sure it wasn't really something in your immediate environment. The problem is that most people don't want to wear headphones when watching movies I suppose.
>>The only surround sound system with any merit whatsoever was Ambisonic, and that died a death well over a decade ago.
Three possibilities: a) it wasn't as good as you say, b) the people running the company were idiots, or c) a little of A and a little of B.
My vote is c.
It can't. I've heard this kind of technology, and sometimes it works, more often it doesn't...and even when it does, the sound just "feels" "weird" but has no direction. Any directional effect is usually quite weak.
If I understand it correctly, it's based off the way sounds are affected by the shape of your ear- but if you've ever noticed, people have differently shaped ears and I imagine their brains become 'calibrated' to their ears...
Further, it's stupid in this price point. Nice idea, but considering for HALF the price you can get a really nice sounding, REAL system from someone decently respectable like Cambridge Soundworks...I fail to see the point. Usually this kind of technology is provided by laptop manufacturers or cheap A/V equipment makers. Not $800 speakers.
Please help metamoderate.
this will be nice sitting on top of my television...
I sampled scenes from several DVDs: Toy Story, Men In Black II, Glengarry Glen Ross and The Lord of the Rings:The Fellowship of the Ring.
... were emerging from the six speakers, including subwoofer
Ahh yes, GGR... a cacaphony of surround sound! (?)
If I didn't know better, I'd think the physical and verbal explosions
Umm, voices of main characters shown on the screen are supposed to come from the center channel in almost all cases. They shouldn't sound like they are "emerging from the six speakers."
It really sounds like this guy is not qualified to review a surround sound package?
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Is there a good fairly-technical introduction to how this stuff works? ("This stuff" being current surround-sound, ambience, 3D sound, 5.1 sound, etc...)
I'm not even clear on how things like 5.1 encoding works--I don't think there are five independent full-bandwidth channels in there. Obviously none of these systems are accurately reproducing the three-dimensional movement of air in the volume surrounding one's head...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The problem was that surround sound is essentially pointless, as most people couldn't care less about STEREO, let alone anything more sophisticated. In case you're wondering, Ambisonic was NOT a simulated surround sound system like all of the currently available systems (real time generation of environmental audio excepted) but rather used an extrememly elegant microphone (the Soundfield mic) and a 3 'speaker (arranged as an equilateral triangle, listener at the centre) replay system. Ambisonic recorded REAL surround information, not studio mixed effects like Dolby et al. There is one further 'proper' surround sytem that has been succesfully used for years, that is so-called "dummy head" recording. Basically, a solid polystyrene human head is used with microphones psitioned at the ears, and replay is done through conventional headphones. The results of both of these systems are fantasically immersive because they use REAL information rather than simulated. Of course, we now also have to ability to generate real-time positional audio effects in video games, and these, too can be considered REAL as the environemt is at least consistent, and the positioning precise.
That was classic intercourse!
You process the left and right channels so that when the sound hits your ears, the left and right channels cancel each other out. If you're using Windows, download this Host-based Player 3D and have a play with it yourself. In speakers mode there is crosstalk-cancellation present.
...the size of the 'sweet spot'. In a regular 2 channel stereo recording, the only place where the recording sounds 'right' is in the middle. If you move to one side, the perceived middle of the stereo image moves as well. These speakers attempt to solve this by reconstructing the wave front of the original sound wave, so that it corresponds as much as possible with the original. In plain language, kinda like the difference between a regular stereo image and a hologram which can be viewed from different angles. Of course, using a regular stereo recording will *still* not give 'holographic' sound, so for now the manufacterers settled for attempts to increase the size of the sweet spot. And yes, the bose speakers that bounce sound off the walls are based on the same principle.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Hmm, being in the middle of the battle of Midway versus on couch listening to speakers reproducing sounds. I, for one, have to go for the couch. Bullets scare me.
I agree with the sentiment, though
I've read the review but I'm wondering. Sometimes I watch a movie together with friends. They are usually spread around the room hanging on different chairs and the couch. Will the surround sound experience be equally good for all of them, or is the person sitting directly in front of the set (far) better off than the rest?
-- Cheers!
If it has five speakers in it...
Then it's NOT a single speaker system. It's not really that much different than my TV with two speakers in the same cabinet.
What a waste of a story.
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
I have Bose speakers and love them. They are not the best I heard while shopping, but they were clearly the best value - everything that cost less sucked miserably, and everything that was better cost twice as much.
For $800, you can buy four or five reasonably nice bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer (and even get change back!), and placement, although still important, is not downright critical.
As for the psychoacoustic trick, it's not a new one. It is really the same thing as two-speaker surround, it is just that the two speakers are in one enclosure. Yes, yes, it has five. That sounds like two tweeters, two mids and a woofer.... not that I've been able to find a grill-off picture of it anywhere to confirm this....
www.wavefront-av.com
Would you buy a car without driving it first? I am in the market for a surround sound system and had considered buying Niro1 however I would love to listen for myself. No where on there site shows where I can listen. I also have a question as to how to connect multiple components through their system. Niro1 only shows a hook up direct to a TV and a VCR in their FAQ. Nothing about hooking it up with a video reciever. I need to hook up my Tivo, VCR, Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube into the system. I suppose the output of the video receiver would go through the Aux channel. Too much marketing not enough facts.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
Sounds very much like holophonics, which Psychic TV were mucking about with in the 80s (see: Dreams Less Sweet album - the sounds were recorded from within a full sized human dummy).
Interesting stuff.
Hmmm.
...but my common sense suggests me that I dont think it will actually work good even for people with good hearing.
However, in case it did, the bad hearing of one ear wirll very probably affect the result. We get three dimensional images because we have two eyes and our brain compares the differences in the images seen by each of the eyes. The same way our brain locates the origin of a sound, by comparing the differences heard by both ears. If one of the ear has a listening problem, lets say it perceives the sound lower than the the other ear, maybe boosting the power and giving more volume to the sound which should be heard by that ear might work. I dont know if these might affect the listening of the 'good' ear, howwver. Nevertheless, if this should work there will probably be a way of 'cancelling' the unwanted power in the 'good' ear, but i dont think any normal company whould care about that.
__
Sig: Marine Stock Photos
HRTFs are real enough, but they are mostly dependent on the shape of the listener's outer ear, which varies a lot from person to person. You can create surround sound with headphones (yes I know this has more drivers -- the required tech is the same). But it takes microphones that fit in the ear canal, some tedious calibration, and preferably an anechoic chamber. Hopefully the box for this thing lists these as "not included".
of course, I recieved it as a present..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I was just about to say "who the hell wants to spend $800 for one speaker? Hell, for that I'll buy a whole system". But then as I sit here in my cramped room I went "oh yeah...it would be nice not having to string cable all over my room, find space for all the speakers, etc". If it really works (can't wait to read the reviews), it could be fun buying this and having my head messed with.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
you just FUCKING FAIL IT!
If there was truly a SINGLE speaker that could do this then that would be noteworthy.
Putting FIVE speakers in a single cabinet and calling it a SINGLE speaker is wrong.
There is nothing new, intersting, innovative or revolutionary about this.
This is about as exciting as an ice cream parlor in Alaska..
For perfect, optimal performance, your name must be Jim, Sally or Skeeter. Red hair will cause slightly better reception than brown hair, and you blondies are just SOL.
Anyone remember quadraphonic sound?
--- Ban humanity.
not another cheat on the human brain. see also
ATRAC etc. ALL compresson that deals with
data going to the human senses SUCK SUCK SUCK!
Get it?!
i hope this company goes bankrupt like soon will
SONY for cheating my pocket book and my brain. shit on ATRAC! good damiit MiniDISC.
isn't any normal human out there any more that values true quality? good f#cking dammit!
Dictionary.com defines a speaker as either a person who speaks or a device that converts eletrical signals into sound that can be heard at a distance ( a.k.a. loudspeaker).
I seem to remember seeing a definition for speakers as an enclosure that contains one or more drivers ( what many people call speakers). That explains why you can have stereo speakers that are actually two collections of drivers ( woofer, midrange, tweeter).
Given all of the above the "one speaker" designation could be considered correct.
I'll take my Definitive Technology speakers over that thing any day.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
First, to everyone who says "why would I want 5 speaker cabinets all over the place instead of one?". Simple, sound is largely effected by the shape of the room, not to mention what is contained in the room. With 5 drivers in one box the surround is simulated, bouncing the sound off the walls with different timings to simulate surround sound. Slight problem though, every room is not shaped the same so this box will only be optimally effective in a room with the dimensions it was designed for. In a real surround system you can make adjustments for the shape of the room. Try doing that with this box. Second, this is actually a 1 speaker system, 2 if you count the sub. The one speaker contains 5 drivers. Before you flame the poster, check the terminology. A speaker consists of all the drivers and the physical box. Third, If you really want to do yourself justice before you talk about how great a box like this is/would be. Take a visit to a local high-end audio shop. Compare a true surround system from say, B&W, driven by some nice amps through a good processor to this all-in-one box. The all-in-one wont sound so great anymore. In fact neither will that circuit-city bose crap. In short, as with most things you get what you pay for.
but I still be purchasing a 5.1 setup. I think we have seen this gimmick before with glasses that had the red and blue lenses. We all know how "cool" that was.
Sounds to me like they are going to put certain channels out of phase to hide the perceived location of a particular speaker. If they do this with particular frequencies and channels at the same time they will be able to create anonymous sound. The problem is by putting certain frequencies out of phase the sound quality will drop as the speakers will fight eachother especially when located in the same cabinet. I would imaagine at theater volume levels (since its so dynamic) explosions and such will not sound very good. For an apartment where you neighbors have some control over your volume levels, this technology could help non-audiophiles.
Try reversing the wires on one of your speakers on your 2 channel stereo. It becomes very hard to pinpoint where the sound is coming from.
Are you intolerant of intolerant people?
The product, that is. Ignoring that people have different HRTFs, room placement will be a problem, because getting good dispersion of treble frequencies as well as dealing with bass boominess (corner placement is often best for subwoofers) are challenges. And I know all about Q-sound such as used on Roger Waters' Amused to Death where the dogs are barking off stage; that's nothing new.
I think what we have here is purely a gimmick. People who think this is the ticket to paradise will be disappointed. The clueless guy who doesn't know the difference between speaker wires and interconnects (patch cords) might be right at home, but jeez, somebody who can figure out how to use an AV receiver ought to be able to hook up speakers. Hide the cabling if you must, but don't be fooled into thinking this single speaker gadget will take you to nirvana. The only good thing about it is it isn't a Bose product, 'cause it'd be twice as expensive and probably sound like crap like the rest of their stuff.
Used by pilots, perhaps only military, to help differentiate between differnet people in radio chatter.
Sounds are processed such that actually come from different places relative to the pilot, both horizontically and vertically, making it much easier to focus on one person. Even when the pilot moves his head, the absolute position of the channels does not.
Anything that people refer to as a "cabinet" is not something you want to be carrying around.
Google for "Carver Sonic Hologram", surround sound from a two speaker stereo system, over 20 years old.
RTFA. I quote:
No sweet spot. It likely is doing signal manipulation to mimic the accoustic modification your ear makes as sound comes in from various locations, rather than just phase differences.
So in other words this in not a single speaker. The only news here is that the speakers are closer than usual.
Just like with every surround sound system known to man. Somehow I doubt if the poster has ever read the linked articles, not to mention anything more about psychoacoustics. If it wasn't Slashdot I would've thought that's an advertisement instead of real news.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
If you want to see a true "single point source" surround sound system. Check out Pioneer's Digital Sound Projector. I think this may also have been featured in a /. story a few months ago.
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/article/0,,2 076_4159_48023,00.html
You were shopping at the wrong places. For the cost of your Bose, you could easily get a Paradigm setup that will trounce it with authority.
Bose does one thing, and they do it VERY will: marketing.
What is wrong with all you people complaining that this is 5 speakers packed as 1? This is a single speaker with 5 drivers for god sake. Most speakers have more than 1 driver!!! Hell, "ONE" of my NHT Full range speaker has 5 drivers in it....10 drivers if you count the pair! Too many geeks don't know shit about audio. Stop shopping only at Best Buy or Circuit City.
Gives new meaning to "Come out with your hands up. You're surrounded!"
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
Your ears are a funny shape. If they were just symmetrical little nubs sticking out of your head, you'd be right. Front/back would be indistinguishable. It is this asymmetry that allows you to determine whether the sound is coming from front to back.
Just talking out of my rear-end, consider that a sound coming from the back left would be blocked on the left side by the edge of the left ear, and on the right side by your entire head. A sound coming from front left would *NOT* be blocked by the "cone" of your left ear, but still blocked by the head on the way to the right ear. This would give you a greater difference in volume and a distinct difference in the character of the sound coming to the left ear (muffled by the cone in one case, clear in the other).
White noise is probably the easiest to find because of its complete coverage of the spectrum. The wider the range of frequencies, the more info your ear has to work with, and the more those complex shapes will bend the different frequencies differently, allowing your brain to make more refined distinctions.
Check out http://www.soundalert.com/technology.htm
for a company that makes special wideband-noise fire alarms that are easier to locate in the dark.
Anyway, I'm not an expert, but I can definitely see ways that your brain could distinguish front-back. Anybody got more reliable data than me?
My old Gravis Ultrasound MAX soundcard had some kind of surround sound emulation using two speakers.
With headphones (atleast with my Sennheisers) the effect was actually quite OK - you really could tell whether the sound came from behind of in front of you.
Of course it couldn't be compared to real surround sound, but it was a slight improvement over normal stereo.
On the one hand: cool idea, glad to see someone still thinks.
On the other hand: would somebody please kick the marketing genius who decided to say "one-speaker" when what he really meant is "one-cabinet (with a whole lotta speakers inside)".
My kids have unsophisticated psychoaucoustic trickery. It is amazing how they can convince me that I am insane after a ten minute ride in my car with their aucoustic ability....
Did everyone fail to notice that Niro Nakamichi is behind this? Even if you haven't studied precedence and psychoacoustics, you should at least give the benefit of the doubt to a company founded by audiophiles, and that has always catered to audiophiles.
/., so it would behoove you to listen to it before you dismiss it out of hand. Don't just read the articles, read about the technology and the company behind the product.
/.
These aren't garage mechanics that had a paper-napkin idea. This is similar to what Polk delivered with the SRS series, but is done electronically. And while it's true that everyone's head and ears are shaped differently (and therefore respond differently to psychoacoustic phenomena), most serious research has shown that only people whose heads are dimensionally way outside of the norm hear "bizzare effects." 90% (or more) of the general population will be astounded, and will have a dramatically simpler system to set up.
Mr. Nakamichi's knowledge of psychoacoustics rivals that of EVERYONE reading
But wait... this is
Tim
The sleek new box, which actually contains 5 CPUs...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
they really need to introduce using Cat5 as a balanced interconnect cable for analog or digital (or both! like DVI-D)
Cheap, abundant, can carry a balanced stereo pair, or a single channel with phantom power, snaplocks, etc. etc.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It's not a one-speaker system if it contains 5 or 6 speakers in one box. That is a 5 or 6 speaker system. I fail to see why people are excited over this, it's just 5 speakers in one box with the individual speakers aim different directions to achieve the surround sound effect.
I have the Altec Lansing ADA-105, and it works great as a stereo speaker, and sometimes I do hear surround-sound effects - but it's not the same as a full set of speakers.
So long as this thing clamps your head in a vice 6 feet away and does a laser scan of your cranium, inner ear, and the room it's in, I'll believe that it produces accurate "Surround Sound", but until then, all it's doing is cutting the audio out of phase enough that it appears to sound as if it's coming from a different direction than the speaker itself. It sounds cool to a lot of people, and that's just fine, but the reproduction is not especially accurate. A regular 4, 5.1, etc setup will do a lot better job, but I can see where the ease of setup and the space considerations will sell this product to a good number of people.
Old news, again. Even the USA Today story is two weeks old! The system was announced back in August and has been shipping since October!
Here's the real link for the company: http://www.niro.net/en/. Go Nakamichi-san Go!
-a.e.mossberg
Surround sound is a necessary compromise; yes, you can get perfect surround sound with just good headphones (and a sub for that added feel on the low end.)
So who's gonna wear the headphones - you or your gf? Oh... the problem comes into focus now doesn't it! If you want to have more than one person listening to surround sound, you need a system.
Furthermore, tracks, movies, games, etc these days aren't mixed for good surround on headphones - they are usually mixed for 2 ch being stereo speakers and surround being a huge system. This is especially true of music. So if you want to experience the track the way it was intended to be experienced in terms of surround sound, you must use a system (or expensive headphones that can decode DD/DTS properly.)
This device will suffer the same problems as stereo speakers, namely that not all rooms are the same and the sound will not be deflected/reflected in the same way, and the effect is probably lost if you aren't in the special "sweet spot" too.
Audio technology is complex, but at least it differs from just looking at things: If it sounds good, it is good. The same axiom isn't necessarily applicable to visual inspections.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
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Pray tell how that's an improvement on separate speakers six feet apart.
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One cabinet is easier get past the interior designer (wife) then four satellite speakers. I would love to get a nice 7.1 system but I would be constantly fighting with her on optimum seating and speaker placement. This one cabinet design is probably a good compromise...
The surround sound effect is achieved by playing some sophisticated MARKETING trickery on the human brain."
Discover magazine published an article about the digital sound projection technology from company http://www.1limited.com/. I can't seem to locate the Discover article.
2 076_4159_48023,00.html.
Pioneer has a production model using this technology, http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/article/0,,
But did not have to use psycho-acoustics.
And it did use two drivers, but not drivers in teh classic sense of the word.
Instead they used a special amplifier set and Two 2"diamter sets of specially angled arrays of sapphire crystals. How it worked was the amplfier (only about 1wrms) would feed a ultrasonic signal to the proper crystal set for the positional alignment of the sound. The collision of the two frequencies at the aligment point resulted in a sound being created at that exact point.
The system has true 20-20khz response and incredible surround experience, but at over $100,000 for a set was rather short lived, and didn't sell well even in audiophile circles.
Pity too, I would love to have seen where that technology would have went too...
Folks who really want good sound will get as many accurate speakers as they can afford and place them accordingly. The more speakers, the more realistic, period. Psychoacoustic tricks can fool most people, but the realism usually doesn't stack up well against a large number of higher quality speakers. I've never seen an exception to this. But for $750, it sure beats buying 10 speakers for $750 each.
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I predict this will sound like crap, just like pretty much all other consumer electronics gimmicks.
But when are sound cards gonna start doing this with head sets?
It's quite probable that your generic sound blaster would be able to achieve this if you attached the right chip and used it with a head set. You have two ears, and two elements, right.
I love the idea of surround sound from one speaker, but I'd rather experience it via my headset. Are major sound cards ever gonna support it? (On Windows AND Linux...)
I read about this a while ago on www.avsforum.com We had a discussion about how completely absurd the technology this thing claims to use is, and how duped you would really have to be in order to buy something so absurd. The same people that will shell out the money for this unit are oh so happy to spend $2000 on a Bose Acoustimass with the included thud module, thinking it's an audiophile dream when in actuallity they just purchased 10 $3 radioshack drivers in poorly made plastic enclosures.
You can NOT get surround sound from a single enclosure, unless it's a 360 degree surrounding enclosure in a ring shape that places you in the center. It's the true definition of surround sound.
Here's my REAL 5.1 system : www.firebuns.com/hometheater/ to prove I at least know a LITTLE bit about the subject.
I emplore all of you to PLEASE not buy this, do some research first and you will understand.
Correction, there are five speakers spaced horizontally in one box, not one.
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
The single speaker unit actually contains five individual speakers
The RIAA math was funny the first time round, but don't push it. Every joke gets old...
Warning: May contain nuts
Even with "full range" speakers, a subwoofer still helps, and they are even used in most movie theaters. Most full range speakers corner at between 30 and 40 hz. A sub can improve the response between the 15-30Hz range. In terms of money spent, getting a full range speaker that corners at 15Hz is probably prohibitivly expensive compared to just getting a sub that "fills the gap".
Since we also are talking about headphone based solutions. What do you think of the Sony digital surround headphones? http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start;sid=zWK vsPLOxJCvq816_cKlu73BM1Uzd-uGyIM=?Dept=hav&Categor yName=hav_HAVDepartmentAccessories_Headphones_Virt ualDolby%2eDigital
Isn't psychoacoustic trickery what Norman Bates used when he wore a dress and faked his mother's screechy voice?
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
Single-frequency noises are the hardest to locate. We're not well adapted for finding pure sines-- something which leads one to believe that maybe we shouldn't be using our current style of sirens on fire trucks. Or that beep noise for large vehicles going in reverse.
It's the shape of the ear cone and it's different effect on different frequencies depending on which direction they originate from that allows us to distinguish direction. With only one frequency, you lose the benefit of having your brain figure out which frequencies are attenuated/enhanced and mapping that to a direction.