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."

Comments

Re:One speaker as good as 5?

[68K]

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.

Gimmick

[FromWithin]

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.

Re:Gimmick

[nicsterrr]

It's not a gimmick at all. It's actually a product based on years of signal processing research.

With regards to how many speakers are needed, the more speakers used, the more control one has in forming the acoustic wave field via signal processing techniques.

It all boils down to error minimisation techniques - given a desired sound field and a set of acoustique sources, minmise the difference between the desired field and the combined field output by the acoustique sources.

Re:Gimmick

[Lumpy]

Proper 3D sound has been around for years, the best being from Sensaura, as licensed on the Xbox and most PC sound chips.

this is a very lame hack compared to the real thing.

Carver Sonic Holography. you could buy one in 1985 and makes all the "3D" systems out there today sound like a complete joke.

Re:Area of effect

[tiled_rainbows]

In my amateur playing about with software synthesis etc, particularly the very cool (and free) Buzz (www.buzz2.com), I've found that the coolest stereo effects come from panning using both delay and volume differences - that is, delaying the sound in one channel and making it slightly quieter.
Interesting effects, to varying levels of "realism", can also be acheived with stereo reverb - having, for example, the "dry" sound of an instrument dominate in the left channel, but the reverby sound dominate in the right.

RTFA

[Phrogz]

Like all simulated surround, this one likely requires you to be in a very specific sweet spot [...]

RTFA. I quote:

The signal manipulations require 600 million calculations per second. Nirotek also claims its system does not require the listener to be directly in front of the speaker to be effective.

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.

This is not new - Altec Lansing did it

[dloflin]

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.