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3D Audio Standard Released

Posted by timothy on from the if-you-had-a-pair-of-ears-on-the-back-of-your-head dept.

CIStud writes The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has released its new 3D Audio Standard (AES69-2015), covering topics such as binaural listening, which is growing due to increased usage of smartphones, tablets and other individual entertainment systems that offer audio using headphones. AES states that an understanding of the way that the listener experiences binaural sound, expressed as head-related transfer functions (HRTF) facilitates the way to 3D personal audio. The standard also looks into convolution-based reverberation processors in 3D virtual audio environments, which has also grown with the increase of available computing power.

82 comments

  1. Could be promising by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    This could be quite promising if incorporated into movies and video games. I watch almost all my movies and play most of my video games at home with headphones, partially so I don't annoy those around me and so I can watch movies while others sleep, but also because I can get much better sound quality out of headphones for a fraction of the price of comparable speakers. If they can get 3D audio working out of simple headphones so I can get full surround sound out of a decent pair of headphones, then I would really like this technology. I've always thought it would make much more sense to just buy 4 sets of headphones for your movie room rather than spend thousands of dollars on a surround sound system that really only gives the correct effect for a certain position in the room.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    1. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      personally... i think you are doing it wrong.

    2. Re:Could be promising by i_ate_god · · Score: 1

      > but also because I can get much better sound quality out of headphones for a fraction of the price of comparable speakers.

      Doubtful. The distance between your ears and your headphones are far from long enough to experience lower frequencies.

      --
      I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
    3. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've always thought it would make much more sense to just buy 4 sets of headphones for your movie room rather than spend thousands of dollars on a surround sound system that really only gives the correct effect for a certain position in the room.

      Yeah, but why stop at that? Why look at a compromise that all of you find watchable but no one really enjoys when you can all look at different movies?

    4. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You don't need a chamber large enough for low frequency to resonate in order to hear the lower frequency. The biggest issue with headphones and lower frequencies is not how close to your ears but the size of the diaphragm. Deep rumbles still sound better with headphones, they only difference is I can't feel it over my entire body.

    5. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Back in the late 90s, my $20 A3D soundcard faked 3D sound so well, I could shoot people through walls in Counter-Strike. It was like I could "see" with my ears. I know several other friends who had this same experience. Ever since A3D got sued out of existence by Creative, I have never heard such good stereo 3D sound. Headphones are superior to speakers because the headphones remain fixed, equally distanced, not affected by the surrounding environment, and the sound from one does not bleed into the other unless explicitly done.

    6. Re:Could be promising by modecx · · Score: 1

      I have a set of Logitech G930 wireless headsets, which I rather like except for the fact that they're advertised as "7.1", which couldn't be a more false statement. Sure, the software interface presents itself as 7.1 discreet channels, but you still have only two drivers. They're reasonably good as stereo headphones, but for "surround" mode they use some Dolby surround psychoacoustics nonsense, which as far as I can tell, basically ups some reverb in the software preamp and makes everything sound like you're in a steel drum. What an advancement. Not.

      In comparison to a much older Turtle Beach headset which actually has 5.1 drivers (with the requisite squid like mess of input leads) Logitech with Dolby space magic falls flat on its face. That headset actually gives you positional audio, and doesn't make you feel like room mate to Oscar the Grouch. Still, I put the Logitech on for more casual use, because they don't have a cord to get caught in the wheels of my chair.

      I expect this "new" binaural 3D sound to be equally uninspiring. Good stereo will always be better than bad surround, and judging by everyone listening to their white earbuds, they don't care enough to get the most out of stereo.

      --
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    7. Re:Could be promising by iluvcapra · · Score: 2

      This could be quite promising if incorporated into movies and video games.

      There are already several platforms for object-based 3D audio in games, they already offer solutions for binaural and HRTF listening.

      The AES has promulgated many standards with regard to file interchange and computer audio, they're always several years behind and chasing proprietary vendor technology that's already established (See AES31, a timeline interchange format supported by no one, even open source projects avoid it like the plague). In the end vendors have nothing to gain by adopting the AES standard.

      On the videogame side there's OpenAL, X3d and a bunch of other platforms that build on these. Speaking as a film sound designer, 3D audio systems just don't offer the level of control I'd want: I don't want the user's cellphone applying my fucking reverbs and distance rolloffs for me, and nether do my clients. This is why there's Dolby ATMOS and the competing Barco-DTS standard which will probably be FRAND and offer down mixing modes which should preserve the experience on headphones, and don't leave things like equalization, or panning, or reverb to the interpretation of the platform or the host.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    8. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Feeling it in your body is part of the fun of bass, to be sure. A simple transducer attached to the furniture you're sitting on (butt kicker, D-Box, etc) that receives the LFE signal from your audio processor would make a huge difference there.
      If the purpose of the headphones is to not disturb someone else in the room, you may need to pay attention to isolating your furniture from the floor and adjusting the intensity of the transducer such that it doesn't audibly vibrate the furniture.

    9. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      You're not wrong. I worked for a company selling an audio card that featured the Aureal A3D engine, and it was incredible compared to even what people are doing today.

      A clear example of "If you can't compete, sue." Also a clear example of patent law snuffing out innovation, rather than fostering it.

    10. Re:Could be promising by Theaetetus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > but also because I can get much better sound quality out of headphones for a fraction of the price of comparable speakers.

      Doubtful. The distance between your ears and your headphones are far from long enough to experience lower frequencies.

      That makes no sense, both from a physics standpoint and a common sense standpoint. For the former, sound is varying air pressure over time. Distance doesn't come into it, and you don't need to run around in a space to hear low frequencies.

      For the latter, the distance between ear buds and your eardrum are approximately what, half an inch? Sound travels at about 1000 ft/sec, or conversely, has a wavelength of 1 ft at 1kHz, 1 inch at 12 kHz, and a half-inch at 24kHz. If your ability to hear low frequency depended on the distance between your ear and the source, then no one wearing earbuds could hear anything below 24 kHz, right? And since most people can't hear above 20kHz, then ear buds would just be silence generators, right?

      Or, if you wanted to hear the rumble of an approaching train in the distance, you wouldn't put your ear on the track because "the distance between it and your ear wouldn't be enough to hear low frequencies" and instead, you'd want to stand several feet away?

      In fact, as noted above, the wavelength of 1 kHz sound wave in air is 1 ft. At 100 Hz, it's 10ft, and at 20 Hz, it's 50 ft. How many people have 50 feet between their ears and their speakers? Or even 10 feet in most living rooms?

      Your post makes no sense, no matter how you think about it.

    11. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck Yes. A3D was one of the most under-appreciated amazing technologies that got crudely demolished along Creative's path to being top audio dog on the market. For years after the demise of Aureal I lamented to every person I could that A3D dying out was easily one of the best examples of business litigation stifling technology advancement. It's funny to see how things turned out for Creative who continued to pursue a mindset of "it's just audio as long as it makes sound, who cares?" I will have a huge smile if we get real HRTF back into audio engines and into consumer devices.

    12. Re:Could be promising by nobuddy · · Score: 1

      I absolutely loved my A3D card. I was sad when SB bought them out then killed the line. It was a very promising technology.

    13. Re:Could be promising by antdude · · Score: 1

      The only thing missing is shaking your body with subwoofer's bass. :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    14. Re:Could be promising by sabbede · · Score: 1

      I just miss hardware accelerated audio. I still don't understand why MS killed it.

    15. Re:Could be promising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sound drivers were a major cause of blue screens. If your code is running at kernel level and interfacing with hardware, it can crash the system, and sound drivers are a dime a dozen, created by lots of low quality companies.

  2. i don't get it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    binaural = stereo
    3d audio = surround sound (5.1/7.1/8.1/etc)

    both have been around forever.

    1. Re:i don't get it..... by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      binaural = stereo
      3d audio = surround sound (5.1/7.1/8.1/etc)

      both have been around forever.

      As have speaker virtualization.

      This is basically another form of speaker virtualization - the ability to simulate a surround sound system using headphones. They do work (since you only have two ears, they just have to reproduce how your ear hears each speaker), and they do keep you from having the "inside your head" feeling you get with stereo sound played on normal headphones.

      However, it's a bit more flexible in that you don't just have a virtual surround setup playing discrete channels of audio. Instead, it lets you position sounds, then simulates how it would sound if it was actually happening and plays that modified audio to your headphones, so it appears that the object was at the location.

      Most virtualization systems (Dolby Headphone, DTS Headphone, Virtuaphone (Sony proprietary) and others) use HRTF (head-related transfer function) methods to compute how audio that's heard at some location in space will be heard by someone so it can be downmixed into two channel audio.

      This is but yet another one. And I'm sure not the last - a few game engines also have the ability to compute 3D audio.

      The other way of doing it is fine if the objects are located in discrete locations - there are a few virtualization systems that use convolution filters by having impulse responses measured from sources at discrete locations and how they're received by microphones.

    2. Re:i don't get it..... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Isn't that a trifle reductive? It is true that you'll need multiple speakers surrounding the subject in order to convincingly fake apparent direction and the like(though you can do fairly well with only two headphones, since they only have two ears and the stereo separation will be extremely good); but you can have arbitrarily many speakers and it isn't "3d audio" unless the signal going to each one has been crafted so as to present the illusion of sound location, distance, and so on; and you can have mere stereo sound that attempts to push the spatial illusion particularly hard, quite possibly to the point of exaggeration or some sort of trickery designed to create a greater sense of stereo separation than is physically available.

      In this case, the point of the standard appears to be making it easier to take '3d audio' information(whether recorded in N.m channels, or from a 3d engine of some kind) and crunching it down into the stereo outputs that will convey the effect best on headphones.

    3. Re:i don't get it..... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      binaural = stereo
      3d audio = surround sound (5.1/7.1/8.1/etc)

      No, binaural is one presentation modality for a 3D soundstage. You could do it with any given set of speakers if you have the right convolution matrix. Stereo imaging was what I worked on for an undergrad project in the early 90's. We had 5.1 available at the time and nobody called it '3D audio' - "Surround Sound" was the common parlance.

      --
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    4. Re:i don't get it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Other than using two discrete channels, Binaural is _not_ stereo.
      Classically, for Binaural, one uses an artificial head, with two microphones implanted inside the ear structures, with such head placed in a "sweet" spot in a Concert Hall.
      I call my head Emily; I made her in 1976, using Sony Electret cartridges.

      For Stereo, classically, one used two microphones, separated by spaces depending on the width and height of the soundstage, but that technique is used rarely now, because it is so now much easier to use many closer microphones, recorded separately on a multi-track recorder, with a final two channel mixdown not remotely resembling in loudness, timbre, or separation, what was actually performed.

    5. Re:i don't get it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Speakers interfere with each other and sound reflects off of objects. Headphones are 100% unaffected. Much better signal to noise in the sense of the actual data received by the brain.

    6. Re:i don't get it..... by iluvcapra · · Score: 3, Interesting

      3d audio = surround sound (5.1/7.1/8.1/etc)

      "5.1/7.1/8.1" doesn't have an elevation component. Certain IMAX formats did, as did some experimental 70mm formats in the 70s, but it hasn't really been widely available before Dolby ATMOS and Barco Auro.

      The big difference with the traditional X.Y formats is these regard individual screen channels as discrete, and when films are mixed, sound sources are hard-assigned to certain speaker channels, and the speaker placement has to be matched in every venue . "3D" systems use procedural methods to assign sound sources a vector or coordinate with metadata, and a decoder at the receiving end does the job of assigning speakers, which may have different placement and number from venue to venue.

      Something mixed in 5.1 or 7.1 can be "downmixed" to stereo by summing channels together and applying pan and gain to position the multichannel sources in a stereo field. But a stereo signal can't really be "upmixed" to a 7.1, the position of individual sound sources is lost and can't really be extracted from the mix -- there are fancy ways of "spatializing" stereo mixes to 5.1 or 7.1 with fourier analysis and panning certain phase correlations or frequencies to different speakers, but there's really no way for a spatializer to split the celli from the violas and pan them separately, or the machine guns and the explosions.

      3D audio formats keep violas and cellis on separate streams in the file, and then use position metadata to do the speaker mix in the receiver, so something mixed on stereo or 5.1 speakers could be unmixed to a 7.1, or 11.1, or 64 channel setup and you would actually get more fidelity.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    7. Re:i don't get it..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you don't get it.
      The standards that are out now encode sound for each playback device - i.e. each speaker
      This standard encodes sound based on where it was emitted and which way it's traveling. The computation for what someone actually should hear happens after the fact based on the position/orientation of their ears.

    8. Re:i don't get it..... by steveha · · Score: 3, Interesting

      binaural = stereo

      Actually in the audio world, "binaural" is used to specifically mean a recording intended for being played directly into the ears.

      I was once present for a binaural recording session. The guy doing the recording had brought a fake human head, and the two microphones for the recoding were positioned in the two ears. The idea was to reproduce as fully as possible what you would have heard if you had been sitting in that spot in the room, with your head in that position.

      You can listen to a binaural recording on speakers of course, but for the best experience you should use headphones.

      For the absolute best experience, the recording should use a fake head that is exactly like your head. Not many people are ever going to experience that.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording

      Audio can do funny things as it travels around your head. For the absolute best 3D experience with headphones, you want to measure what happens to audio around your head; this is called your "Head-Related Transfer Function" or "HRTF". Instead of recording the audio with a fake head shaped just like yours, companies can just record a good 5.1 or 7.1 recording, and then you can mix that down to a binaural stereo mix that is perfect for your head if you have your HRTF. According to the article the AES is standardizing a file format for HRTF data, so that the software you get will be more likely to be able to work with your HRTF data if you have it measured.

      The ultimate in VR audio will be headphones with motion tracking, and real-time mixing that uses your HRTF and changes the mix as you turn your head. If something is supposed to be coming from your left, and you turn your head to the left, that sound should get louder; then if you turn your head away from it, it should get quieter. If this is done right it should be incredible. People have been working on this for years and I'm sure someone somewhere has done it right, but I haven't seen any commonly available products to do it yet.

      But with VR goggles you should totally have VR audio like I described above. It would be really immersive.

      3d audio = surround sound (5.1/7.1/8.1/etc)

      Pretty much, 3D audio is intended to include speakers above the plane of the 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setup; the industry calls these "height speakers". DTS 11.1 audio, for example, has a standard 7.1 setup, and then 4 height speakers: two in the front and two in the back.

      The current ultimate in 3D audio is a 22.2 setup, where the ceiling has a 3x3 array of speakers, there are speakers at mid height, and there are speakers at ground level. However, IMHO there is zero chance that 22.2 will catch on as an audio standard.

      Before the 5.1 and 7.1 digital standards, there was Dolby Surround that was encoded within a stereo soundtrack. A simple audio mixer could "upmix" from stereo to surround. DTS Neural Upmix can make a very clean 7.1 from a stereo signal, and it works from an analog signal (it's not something tricky inside a digital encoded format). You can't get 8 kilograms of flour into a 2-kilo bag, and Neural Upmix 7.1 can't completely reproduce the same mix as you can play through 8 discrete channels, but it can provide a good experience.

      DTS 11.1, as I understand it, uses technology similar to DTS Neural Upmix to encode the 4 "height" channels within the other 7.1 channels. Turning 7.1 into 11.1 should be a lot easier than turning 2.0 into 7.1 so it should provide a good experience.

      I expect the industry to go to "object oriented" audio. This means that audio will have metadata tags saying what direction the audio is coming from, and then a real-time mixer upmixes from the digital format with the metadata tags to whatever mix you need (i.e. if you have 11.1 speakers you get an 11.1 mix, if you actually have 22.2 speakers you get that, if you have 7.1 you get that, etc.) I believe Dolby Atmos works this way, and I believe DTS

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    9. Re:i don't get it..... by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      Before the 5.1 and 7.1 digital standards, there was Dolby Surround that was encoded within a stereo soundtrack. A simple audio mixer could "upmix" from stereo to surround. DTS Neural Upmix can make a very clean 7.1 from a stereo signal, and it works from an analog signal (it's not something tricky inside a digital encoded format).

      There's a fundamental difference between an encoded mix and an upmixer. Dolby Surround is intended to be decoded from 2 tracks into LCRS, the filmmakers mixed the film in Dolby Stereo and were listening to the surrounds so they know what's in them. The phase encoding is part of the channel spec.

      An upmixer takes a stereo or 5.1 mix and applies effects to it to make it sound like it was mixed in a wider format, but there's nothing really being decoded, it's just synthesizing or guessing what should be in the additional channels using heuristics, all-pass filters, delays, crossover networks and other stuff that sounds cool or "provide a good experience" but, in fact, interfere with the filmmaker's intent.

      Neural Upmix is an upmixer, DTS Neo:X is an actual format that decodes an 11.1. Neo:X home receivers also employ upmixing, mainly because no films are mixed in 11.1 Neo:X, it's a surround audiophile format, and it needs to do an upmix in order to justify people spending money on it.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    10. Re:i don't get it..... by mspring · · Score: 1

      Let me fully understand it... What happens when I'm listening via headphones and I turn my head? Will the sound stay in the same absolute direction?

    11. Re:i don't get it..... by steveha · · Score: 1

      There's a fundamental difference between an encoded mix and an upmixer. Dolby Surround is intended to be decoded from 2 tracks into LCRS, the filmmakers mixed the film in Dolby Stereo and were listening to the surrounds so they know what's in them. The phase encoding is part of the channel spec.

      I'm with you so far.

      An upmixer takes a stereo or 5.1 mix and applies effects to it to make it sound like it was mixed in a wider format, but there's nothing really being decoded, it's just synthesizing or guessing what should be in the additional channels using heuristics, all-pass filters, delays, crossover networks and other stuff that sounds cool or "provide a good experience" but, in fact, interfere with the filmmaker's intent.

      The original Dolby surround and DTS Neural Upmix can both be applied to any stereo recording and some sort of upmix will occur, but both were designed to be used with a mix that was intended to be upmixed. DTS also sells DTS Neural Downmix which can take a 5.1 or 7.1 stream and output stereo with intentionally encoded signals that decode back to 5.1 or 7.1 sound.

      When DTS Neural Upmix is working from a stereo signal that was made using DTS Neural Downmix, you get a really clean surround sound with no leakage. I used to listen to the multichannel recording of "Money" by Pink Floyd, and the cash register and coin sound effects very cleanly came from all the different directions like the original multichannel mix.

      Again, you can't fit 8 kilos of flour into a 2-kilo sack, so 7.1 audio sent through downmix, then upmixed back to 7.1, can never perfectly reproduce the original multichannel recording. But I was impressed by just how well it did.

      Despite the name "Neural Upmix", it is designed to work with phase-encoded signals intentionally mixed using Neural Downmix.

      Neural Upmix is an upmixer, DTS Neo:X is an actual format that decodes an 11.1. Neo:X home receivers also employ upmixing, mainly because no films are mixed in 11.1 Neo:X, it's a surround audiophile format, and it needs to do an upmix in order to justify people spending money on it.

      My understanding is that DTS 11.1 audio uses intentionally encoded signals for the height channels, but the on-disk format is DTS Master Audio 7.1 (no additional discrete channels).

      Just as the original Dolby surround could be listened to in stereo if you didn't have surround speakers, the 11.1 mix can be listened to in 7.1 if you don't have height speakers; in both cases, the downmix process is supposed to not add anything objectionable.

      I don't know what you mean by "DTS 11.1 is an actual format"... if you mean that it has 12 discrete channels, I believe you are mistaken on this point.

      Here's how DTS describes the 11.1 system:

      An important goal of the DTS multi-tiered plan is to enable content creators to produce 3D audio and provide it to consumers without changing the delivery chain. With the DTS Neo:X capability for near discrete Height/Wide output, studios can produce directional cues intended only for these speakers, with no audible leakage into other channels. Studios can also produce soundtracks optimized for DTS Neo:X that offer a compatible listening environment in âoestandardâ multi-channel playback configurations.

      From the "How it works" tab on this page:

      http://www.dts.com/professionals/sound-technologies/audio-processing/dts-3d-audio.aspx

      "without changing the delivery chain": no new audio format, disks play fine on older DTS decoders

      "no audible leakage": there's no problem with leakage if you have discrete channels; if we are even talking about leakage, we are talking about an upmix.

      I don't believe Imade any mistakes in my original post.

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    12. Re:i don't get it..... by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      Despite the name "Neural Upmix", it is designed to work with phase-encoded signals intentionally mixed using Neural Downmix.

      They sell it as doing both, it's marketed as a spatializing upmixer that can also decode Neural Surround (which is a third format not necessarily related to Neo:X). But this feature is sorta incidental, as literally nothing is mixed in Neural Surround.

      I don't know what you mean by "DTS 11.1 is an actual format"... if you mean that it has 12 discrete channels, I believe you are mistaken on this point. .. "without changing the delivery chain": no new audio format, disks play fine on older DTS decoders

      My understand is that the height channels are encoded sum-and-difference with the main L-R channels, and a special decoder reads reads additional channel data to subtract out the height channels from the mains. Auro 3D uses a similar method with it's high 5.0 array in order to do the same thing: make a deliverable that can be turned into a bare 5.1 just by dropping additional channels.

      By "actual format" I mean its a communications channel where the sender and recipient agree on what goes into the channel and what is supposed to come out.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    13. Re:i don't get it..... by steveha · · Score: 1

      [DTS Neural Upmix is] marketed as a spatializing upmixer that can also decode Neural Surround (which is a third format not necessarily related to Neo:X).

      No, there is no "Neural Surround" format as such. Neural Downmix uses phase encodings and the output is just an audio stream (can be analog, saved as a wave file, saved as DTS Master Audio, saved as MP3, etc.).

      Look at this PDF. There are two columns: one shows different disk formats and how many bits per second each one needs; the other column has one thing in it, Neural Surround. This is because Neural Surround isn't a format as such.

      http://www.dts.com/~/media/d5aad4e0d179439c8588ac3b61e37444/DTS_Broadcast_infosheet.pdf

      See also this press release. A radio station was broadcasting in 5.1 using Neural Surround... broadcasting in ordinary stereo FM as well as HD radio. Anyone could listen in stereo, but those with Neural Upmix in their stereo receivers could hear 5.1 sound.

      http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wguc-fm-begins-51-broadcasting-with-neural-surroundtm-56267632.html

      But this feature is sorta incidental, as literally nothing is mixed in Neural Surround.

      I'm sorry but you are completely mistaken on this point. Let's look at the DTS web site again:

      DTS Neural Surround DownMix technology reduces multichannel surround sound to a stereo mix that accurately represents the original intent of the content creator.

      The DTS Neural Surround DownMix uses patented âoeActive Correctionâ technology. By analyzing the audio, the phase and intensity are rewritten, creating a pristine Lt/Rt stereo mix.

      This process eliminates problems that traditionally occur in matrix surround downmix systems, such as comb filtering and spatial distortion. DTS Neural Surround DownMix creates a natural sounding stereo mix that is spatially true to the original multichannel localization.

      http://www.dts.com/professionals/sound-technologies/audio-processing/dts-neural-surround.aspx#downmix

      Note the phrase "pristing Lt/Rt stereo mix" and the concerns about comb filtering in the output mix. There is mixing going on here.

      DTS Neural Downmix produces a stereo output stream which may be saved in any format. You can feed the result to DTS Neural Upmix, even as an analog waveform, and it will upmix using the encoded signals. There is no disk format for "DTS Neural Surround" as such.

      My understand is that the height channels are encoded sum-and-difference with the main L-R channels, and a special decoder reads reads additional channel data to subtract out the height channels from the mains.

      I think it is possible that there is some additional metadata embedded in the DTS Master Audio bitstream, because old DTS decoders do understand metadata tags and will ignore them. But there is no bitstream change from plain DTS 7.1 to DTS 11.1, and you can play the 11.1 stream on an old DVD player and you will get 7.1 out. (Just like you could play Dolby Surround on a stereo and get stereo out, if you didn't have the Dolby Surround decoder to upmix from stereo to surround.)

      If you are still convinced that DTS 11.1 has additional discrete channels, please find a reference and show me. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I think the DTS web page I referenced in the previous post backs me up.

      By "actual format" I mean its a communications channel where the sender and recipient agree on what goes into the channel and what is supposed to come out.

      Then I would say that DTS 11.1 is an actual format exactly the way Dolby Surround was an actual format. Both rely on specific, agreed-upon phase encodings

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    14. Re:i don't get it..... by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      There is no disk format for "DTS Neural Surround" as such.

      Right, it's a phase matrix format, like Dolby Stereo or Pro Logic II. And like those, you can listen to the LtRt as a plain left-right and you'll still hear something that's tolerable stereo, it's just perilous for certain applications (it'll have bad mono compatibility).

      See also this press release. A radio station was broadcasting in 5.1 using Neural Surround... broadcasting in ordinary stereo FM as well as HD radio. Anyone could listen in stereo, but those with Neural Upmix in their stereo receivers could hear 5.1 sound.

      Right, it's a format. In a professional context this would be called a format. Format does not imply digital. Optical SVA Dolby SR is a "format" in this context.

      Then I would say that DTS 11.1 is an actual format exactly the way Dolby Surround was an actual format.

      Neural Surround is a format, it's a 7.1 format. DTS 11.1 is Neo:X, at least it's the only one I can find.

      If you read their white paper it says nothing about encoding or encoding format, Neo:X is an upmixing system. This is what it is:

      To match the user's speaker layout, DTS Neo:X separates input frequencies into sub-bands and then creates additional output channels. As it adds depth and intensity, it maintains the integrity of the original audio, keeping elements in their intended locations.

      Okay, any box that "adds depth and intensity" is rank woo. You can't take a stereo mix from, say, the 1980s, run it through an upmixer and call that a high-fidelity process, you're making up a mix that the original mixer never intended. If the guy who made the mix didn't make it in DTS 11.1, there's absolutely no reason for you to play it back in 11.1, unless you're an audiophile or a horn-counting crackpot. But this is what the DTS gear is selling -- play any format through our box and we'll make it surround, that's the pitch. (More like, we won't make you feel like an idiot for buying all those speakers when nothing on cable, Internet or Blu-Ray uses them.)

      I'm a feature film sound designer and mixer, DTS is completely out of theatrical and television -- the original theater format is owned by a different company now, and the DTS name is just used to sell stereo equipment. DTS has become is the Bose of home theater. Go through their website and there's basically nothing for filmmakers, film mixers or TV mixers. I can't find any documentation of a Neo:X encoder, or a licensing system for productions. All of their "for professionals" documentation looks like its for home theater installers. Neo:X is just a box in your house that sprinkles fairy dust on your speaker outputs.

      The difference with Dolby Stereo is Dolby Stereo uses an encoder, an SEU4 or the AAX/VST/AudioUnits equivalent, and you need the decoder in order to hear the mix in surround, and the filmmaker has complete control over how sound is placed and presented, not a box in the viewer's living room. It's up to the filmmaker to add "depth and intensity" if he wants to, not some box.

      The only movie I can actually find that's advertised as Neo:X is Expendables 2, and it doesn't appear to be encoded for Neo:X, it's just been "optimized" for Neo:X, which means they just listened to the mix it through a Neo:X receiver and made a whole new mix just for people with Neo:X receivers -- in other words, the mixer had to change his mix so the Neo:X box wouldn't screw it up the presentation. Any box that remixes my work is crap. We spend weeks getting this stuff right and getting the director, editor and producers to sign off on every little detail, and then some home theater box is going to re-pan everything, add nonstandard height channels and multiband crossovers? What's the point of that, except to sell speaker gear?

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    15. Re:i don't get it..... by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      But this feature is sorta incidental, as literally nothing is mixed in Neural Surround.

      Oh you don't understand, by "nothing" I mean no films or television shows are distributed using a Neural Surround downmixer. Because of this, there's no reason to have a Neural Surround decoder for your home.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    16. Re:i don't get it..... by steveha · · Score: 1

      Now that you explained your points I don't think I disagree with you about any of the technical stuff.

      I interpreted "nothing is mixed in Neural Surround" as "Neural Surround does not mix anything" which wasn't your intent. I agree that there isn't much content in Neural Surround; that press release was from 2006, and I don't know if that radio station is still doing the 5.1 broadcasts or not.

      I'm a feature film sound designer and mixer, DTS is completely out of theatrical and television -- the original theater format is owned by a different company now

      Correct. DTS the company split into two, and the theatre-related one changed its name to Datasat.

      "optimized" for Neo:X

      I think that "optimized for Neo:X" might also mean that an audio mix with height channels might have been run through a downmixer to get a suitable 7.1 mix that can be upmixed properly to 11.1. I don't know if Expendables 2 has helicopters or planes flying overhead, but if so, the people who bought height speakers might as well get some sound out of them.

      "Object-oriented" audio encoding formats solve the problem in the best way: if there is a helicopter overhead, there will be an audio object tagged "overhead" and the mix can be adapted to whatever speakers the user has. If the user has height speakers, they get used. That's what I want for my living room anyway.

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    17. Re:i don't get it..... by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      That's what I want for my living room anyway.

      Buy a Home Atmos rig. I've been going around to Gearslutz and asking around here at the studio and nobody has even heard of Neo:X.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    18. Re:i don't get it..... by steveha · · Score: 1

      Buy a Home Atmos rig

      I'm not in a big hurry, and I want to see what DTS comes out with before I invest in an object-oriented sound system. Also I'm not in a hurry to bolt speakers to my ceiling and run the wires.

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    19. Re:i don't get it..... by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      I'm not in a big hurry, and I want to see what DTS comes out with before I invest in an object-oriented sound system.

      Seriously, don't bother, all the features and TV shows doing objects mixing now are mixing in Atmos, and the DTS-Barco system is a vaporware "open spec" that's DOA.

      You don't have to do a ceiling installation for home atmos, I've heard good things about top-firing speakers.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
  3. Monster cables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is going to sound incredible on gold plated 3d monster cables!!

    1. Re: Monster cables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not only that but your monster gold plated 3d glasses will look good on you. Next they'll invent a helmet which completely isolates you from your 3d environment just so you can enjoy 3d. Dumbfucks, fuck 3d in the ass, movies and music alike.

    2. Re:Monster cables by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

      Poseur! If you're inputs aren't pristinely represented, you'll hear nothing except your hissy Monster cables. I knew you were a fraud when you didn't say to use this, too!

      --
      That is all.
  4. Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't Dolby already produce the specs for how to convert 3D audio into pseudo-3D audio for stereo devices?

    And supposedly you already can downconvert 7.1 and 5.1, and so on, to this magical Dolby spec.

    On an unrelated note, I think they already produce 5.1+ surround sound headphones, if you are into that sort of thing (but you probably already know about those things if you genuinely cared about the subject).

    This sounds like an advertisement for a solution that was solved 10+ years ago.

  5. And another DRM loop to jump through... by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's not forget that this means new DRM and additional difficulty to get shit that we paid for working together.

    1. Re:And another DRM loop to jump through... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Proof of DRM?

    2. Re:And another DRM loop to jump through... by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Every new digital technology improvement in the A / V / videogame department has brought new DRM with it. I can't see how this time it's going to be different.

    3. Re:And another DRM loop to jump through... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have absolutely no idea how you jump to that conclusion.. care to elaborate?

    4. Re:And another DRM loop to jump through... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it has, it so far hasn't given me any issues. I can still play, copy, rip, convert, and encode everything just fine. What kind of trouble have you been having the past 15 years?

    5. Re:And another DRM loop to jump through... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Proof of DRM?

      Holographic copyright notices.

    6. Re:And another DRM loop to jump through... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      http://www.theonion.com/video/...

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:And another DRM loop to jump through... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      http://www.theonion.com/video/...

      The irony is that I have seen this before yet now it asks for money because I've reached a limit of the amount I can consume from theonion for one day, and they don't offer downloads for consumption at convenience.

      Quite an appropriate source of satire when discussing DRM.

  6. More patent hurdles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    So is it patent-encumbered ?

  7. How Big Is Your "Cable?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does it include standards on how the copper content and the size of the cables? I need to know because I have HUGE cables.

  8. OpenAL? by ilsaloving · · Score: 1, Redundant

    What's wrong with OpenAL?

    I love standards! There are so many to choose from!

    1. Re:OpenAL? by ilsaloving · · Score: 2

      Or, you know, I could RTFA and find out that it's actually an effort to create a FILE FORMAT for sharing 3d spatial audio data. Dunno if there's already such a thing, but if there isn't then it definitely makes sense to have one.

    2. Re:OpenAL? by spikesahead · · Score: 1

      the ogg file format has supported multiple streams pretty much since inception. Couple this with a bit of positional tagging information and you're done.

      --
      bend like the reed
    3. Re:OpenAL? by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      the ogg file format has supported multiple streams pretty much since inception. Couple this with a bit of positional tagging information and you're done.

      Yeah, but this thing isn't just positional tagging, it's 3D soundscape stuff. So you have to have a way of communicating to the receiver the kind of space the audio stream is in -- the size of it, the general shape, how reflective the surfaces are, diffusion, the position of the space relative to the source, etc. and then you have to rigorously define the reverb algorithms that will be applied to the source taking these into account. You also have to define equalization (and perhaps other LTI) functions for distance, and diffraction around obstacles.

      Then, if better reverb and EQ spatialization algos are developed, how do you push these out? How do you handle legacy content that used the old algos? Do they get auto-upgraded or do they play in the old ones?

      And then there's the HRTF business: you have to define the HRTFs that will be used, and under what conditions.

      And the positioning itself has subtleties you have to address. Will sound sources be positioned relative to a central listener in spherical coordinates, or will it be positioned relative to a reference space with rectangular ones? How will in-phase content be handled when mixed to one speaker?

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    4. Re:OpenAL? by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

      Every electronic space/reverb algorithm I've heard just adds distortion and makes the original sound worse. I prefer to hear just the original instruments in as pristine quality as possible as if we were in an infinite volume room.

    5. Re:OpenAL? by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      Every electronic space/reverb algorithm I've heard just adds distortion and makes the original sound worse.

      Well, by definition any signal-dependent component a process adds to an original signal is distortion. :) I just don't think you've heard good ones. Also, part of doing good music mixing is using reverb in a way that people don't notice, or just accept as natural. There are also applications of reverb that don't sound like reverb.

      I prefer to hear just the original instruments in as pristine quality as possible as if we were in an infinite volume room.

      I assure you, no recording of music you love has been recorded or presented in this way. Anechoic musical recordings exist but they're sorta special and they only work for certain instruments (OK for strings, awful for percussion, death for winds and vocals).

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
  9. Intriguing.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds very interesting, but not interesting enough for the $50 fee to download the spec.

  10. So, not really stereo by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

    Not really anything regarding stereo, but how to digitally recreate a 3D space and provide the resultant acoustic signature to stereo headphones? So, you could digitally model Carnegie Hall, or a warehouse, or a coffee shop, and if you know the locations of your point sources of audio you can then create what the room would sound like based on a given listener location and orientation? It sounds (a bit like) raytracing for audio, with the format allowing a standardized way to define the space.

    Yes? No? For once, I think we actually need an *article* to go with this abstract, or at least a Bennet Haselton-style rant* as the summary.

    *except factual, useful, and correct.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    1. Re:So, not really stereo by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      Not really anything regarding stereo, but how to digitally recreate a 3D space and provide the resultant acoustic signature to stereo headphones?

      We can do this without any fancy computers, traditionally someone would make a binaural recording with a dummy head.

      So, you could digitally model Carnegie Hall, or a warehouse, or a coffee shop, and if you know the locations of your point sources of audio you can then create what the room would sound like based on a given listener location and orientation?

      It's not generally possible to do this from procedural models, because it turns out a space like Carnegie Hall has a lot of variables, but we can do the equivalent of LIDARing the space for its audio character by capturing an impulse response and creating a convolution reverb of the space. There isn't a commercially-available IR of Carnegie that I'm aware of but recording the aural character of a space is a pretty routine thing nowadays.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    2. Re:So, not really stereo by Theaetetus · · Score: 1

      Not really anything regarding stereo, but how to digitally recreate a 3D space and provide the resultant acoustic signature to stereo headphones? So, you could digitally model Carnegie Hall, or a warehouse, or a coffee shop, and if you know the locations of your point sources of audio you can then create what the room would sound like based on a given listener location and orientation? It sounds (a bit like) raytracing for audio, with the format allowing a standardized way to define the space.

      Yes? No? For once, I think we actually need an *article* to go with this abstract, or at least a Bennet Haselton-style rant* as the summary.

      *except factual, useful, and correct.

      Kind of... You know how, even though you only have two ears, you can still determine whether a sound is coming from in front of you, behind you, above you, below you, etc.? You don't need 5 ears or 7 ears or whatever surround-sound standard you think of, and yet you still get a great 3D image. It has to do with some complicated math our brains are instinctively doing, measuring the interaural phase differences of low frequency signals received at each ear, and interaural timing and amplitude differences of high frequency signals. A signal from your right that gets to your right ear has to travel an additional foot and a half or so to get to your left ear, and that results in a phase difference for a signal with a long wavelength (say, below around 800 Hz) or a time and amplitude difference for signals with shorter wavelengths.
      Additionally, your ears are not symmetrical, but have a small reflector at the front, a curved reflector along the top and back, etc., and these reflectors have specific reflective and absorptive bandwidths, so signals coming from different directions (above you, below you, etc.) are filtered in slightly different ways.

      All of these features make up the head-related transfer function (HRTF) that acts as a filter on a signal based on its frequency and 3-dimensional position around your head.

      As an aside, binaural recordings are typically done with things that look like headphones, but are actually microphones placed very close to the engineer's ears, so that the audio they pick up is affected by the HRTF. When you play the recording back over headphones, you get incredible 3D audio. And Neumann makes the KU 100 head-on-a-stick binaural microphone that actually has rubbery ears and microphones placed where eardrums would be.

      This standard defines ways to store and process the HRTF so that recordings can be decoded by binaural processors for playback in earbuds or headphones. Importantly, it allows a recording to be stored in a format capable of multiple ways of decoding, so that you can have one track that you can play in surround sound from your speakers, or load up on your phone and play through ear buds, and still get a great 3D environment (binaural recordings don't work effectively through speakers, and surround sound collapses down to stereo through ear buds; this allows one file to play on both).

  11. Aureal Vortex 2 by J-1000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Interactive 3D sound was incredible on my sound card with a Vortex 2 chipset back around 1999. After their acquisition by Creative Labs I've heard very little good 3D sound. Is it really that uncommon, or am I just numb? Seems odd that we're still trying to get this figured out.

    1. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by DocSavage64109 · · Score: 1

      It seems to me that the 3d audio in every single fps (first person shooter) has been just fine for 20 years. I suppose having a standard is good though.

    2. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by Prune · · Score: 1

      3D positional audio is only a solved problem in the special cases where you have either (a) made binaural recordings — microphones in the ears of a dummy head with an HRTF known to be sufficiently similar to the listener's (or the listener's actual head!), or (b) have all the original positional information about the sound sources, and all environmental information affecting propagation and reverb, to compute the total wavefront from all directions converging at the listener's virtual head position, and then convolve that with the listener's HRTF. Neither of these are useful in general; (a) is not useful because different listeners have widely different HRTFs so the best you can do is use a generic dummy head that limits significantly the performance (there are examples you can find online and do your own test — the difference in using an HRTF substantially similar to your own is staggering: you can even clearly tell vertical directionality); (b) is useful only when you can individually record each sound source (ok for virtual ones like in computer games, and impossible for general real world recordings), and you still need the listener's HRTF (either measured, or computed from a laser scan of the head — both impractical and time-consuming). Beyond this, there's still the issue of playback acoustics. With in-ear headphones that's fine. With speakers, delivering the processed binaural sound means you need to perform of cross-talk cancellation (sound from a speaker reaching the opposite ear), which can only be done for a very limited set of spatial positions, and basically means a single listener not moving from the sweet spot.

      There is a (c) as well, which doesn't rely on binaural sound and HRTFs, and can handle multiple listeners — spherical many-channel approaches that are exemplified by the BBC's old ambisonics tech. That uses a many-directional (spherically distributed) microphone for recording, encoding in spherical harmonics, and playback on a set of speakers arranged in a sphere. With enough channels (read: too many to be practical) and a treated environment (read: anechoic chamber), you can get good positional audio, but still not approaching what is possible with the binaural case ((a) and (b)).

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
    3. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We're not still trying to figure this out. It's that we *can't* use it.

      HRTF is a patent minefield, thanks to Creative Labs and a few others. It's extremely difficult to develop decent software HRTF functions without stepping on someone's patent. No one in the videogame industry bothers with hardware acceleration anymore as it's not supported, and even if it were, is far too limiting (think fixed-pipeline versus shader-based rendering). As such, we're pretty much stuck with basic pan/volume simulation of 3D sound, perhaps with a bit of low-pass filtering if you're lucky.

      Fortunately, many of those patents should be expiring soon, and CPUs are now plenty powerful enough to perform those calculations in software. So, we may see high-quality HRTF functions make a comeback in the next five years or so. Kind of sad, really.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    4. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by The+Raven · · Score: 1

      I miss that sound card. Being called a cheater in Counter Strike because I could tell exactly where people were was so satisfying.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
    5. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      You never had an A3D card did you? 3D Audio was incredible back in the 90s with this card. Then Creative got in and sued them out of existence. Since then 3D audio has been nothing but procedural fakery done in software with a few affects applied (think the audio equivalent of Doom sprites always facing the viewer's camera but actually being 2D).

      3D Audio in games took a colossal step back in the 90s and never recovered. Heck even a few months ago on Slashdot there was an article about a company trying to release a raycaster for audio which really took me back because that's sort of how A3D worked. The current state of 3D audio in games is an absolute joke.

    6. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by sabbede · · Score: 1
      Creative had great hardware accelerated 3D audio (EAX) which they licensed out to other manufactures, but Microsoft killed any such thing when they deprecated DirectSound in Vista. I'm still kind of ticked off that I have this great DSP that goes completely unused while audiodg eats up my CPU.

      I've heard it was for DRM reasons, which just upsets me further.

    7. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by sabbede · · Score: 1

      It was something of a dick move by Creative, especially since first gen EAX didn't compare to A3D. Later iterations were amazing though. Until MS killed hardware audio.

    8. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      As a matter of interest, what did MS have to do with it? I was under the impression that Creative effectively drove the path towards software audio.

    9. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by sabbede · · Score: 1
      Not so far as I've found. Creative bet big on hardware audio, but in Vista Microsoft re-wrote the audio stack, eliminating direct access to audio hardware so DirectSound and DirectSound3D weren't direct anymore.

      (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectSound#Windows_Vista.2FWindows_7)

      I've never seen any explanation from MS for why they did it, just rumors that it had something to do with DRM. No matter their reasons, it was devastating for Creative. They differentiated their products by focusing on positional audio acceleration and effect extensions which no longer worked. They released a program called ALchemy that intercepted DirectSound calls and translated them into the still accelerated OpenAL (which, sadly, is pretty much dead now), but it was hardly perfect, and Creative has never recovered. And it's kind of sad. Creative was the driving force behind PC audio for decades.

    10. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I would actually disagree with this history slightly. Hardware audio was dead long before Vista came out. Creative bet big on accelerating something that didn't actually need accelerating. Audio processing used a tiny TINY portion of the CPU time and was simply not worth buying hardware for. The inclusion of on-board 7.1 sound which wasn't appreciably worse than what Creative offered for anyone other than someone who actually did audio recording is what killed Creative. Even then most professionals were going the route of M-Audio or other "audio" affiliated companies while Creative seemed to be chasing gamers with a useless product.

      In any case the problems with hardware audio existed long before that point too. Creative were pushing procedural effects based on game location to be applied to sound rather than any actual processing. "Environmental" effects like EAX were significantly worse even at the later stages than what A3D were doing with actual simulation of the sound. They were firmly in the litigate, not innovate camp.

      Now that being said I'm not sure A3D would have survived this day and age either because I in general think that people don't care enough about the potential sound improvement to spend $100 on dedicated hardware for it. Now if they still existed and licensed it off as software extensions....

      Side note: Just checked out Creative's website. When their flagship card doesn't mention the word "games" on the website you know you're chasing a different industry. But oooh it has swappable opamps, like that matters for some reason... yes it's a company truly lost.

    11. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by sabbede · · Score: 1

      Well, swappable op-amps is something audiophiles love. And although the theoretical cpu overhead of software audio seems negligible, the actual impact was not. Especially considering that the change occurred when single core cpus still dominated. Much of that is probably due to bugs in implementation (I still see audiodg rape my resources on occasion), but even if something isn't generally necessary, that doesn't mean it should be eliminated. In fact, MS has restored some degree of direct access, but only for certain Win 8 apps. And in Vista, I saw a definite impact on performance with software processing. CPU intensive games saw a real hit, since audiodg would routinely consume over 10% my CPU and well over 100 megs of RAM. .

    12. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      I didn't mean to imply that audio processing was a zero hit on CPU, I implied that for the most part games aren't limited by CPU. Actually I've never owned a gaming system that was limited by CPU, though I guess at the very top of the line systems you may end up with that scenario and I may be speaking out of ignorance.

      Also my opamps comment was more tongue in cheek. Audiophiles typically have an irrational hatred of opamps, and those that do understand the phenomenally high performance available in an integrated package will typically favour one of a hand full of "top the line" for audio opamps which run a whole $5ea from the manufacturer in quantities of less than 10. I was more taking a dig at how "cheap" a company must be that being able to swap out the core amplification component on the "high end" board is a feature. It's like saying a feature on my Ferrari is that I can replace the engine with something else. :-)

    13. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by yakumo.unr · · Score: 1

      I loved some of my creative cards, but I heard MS killed it because they were sick of sound card drivers, especially creative ones, being such a huge source of BSODs.

    14. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by sabbede · · Score: 1

      What are you talking about? Creative writes he best drivers ever! I can't think of a single problem they ever causIRQ_NOT_LESS_OR _EQUAL

    15. Re:Aureal Vortex 2 by sabbede · · Score: 1
      I don't, but high entirely understand it either, but swappable op-amps are common on high end cards. And I know, if it's so high-end, why would you want to swap components?

      I've never had a top of the line system myself, but I think that's why the CPU hit was so noticeable. I was doing everything imaginable to free up resources for Oblivion - upping it's priority, stopping services, even closing explorer! In the end I was left with a dilemma, deal with the bugs in the new audio stack that hit my framerate, or deal with the audio glitches from ALchemy and it's trial-and-error method of configuration.

  12. Interesting to us tapers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I am a "taper" meaning I go to concerts, record them legally with permission of the band, and then give them away, such as uploading them to the Live Music Archive on Archive.org (I'm SmokinJoe). It's a hobby, not a business model. Some recordings sound good with headphones, and some don't, for various reasons.

    HRTF or "binaural" recordings generally involve head mounted omnidirectional mics, and sound great with headphones, but not so great in a living room playback setting. More often than not we use directional mics pointed at the sound source, which gives us tapes with better living room playback, and poorer directional qualities when listening with headphones.

    I would love to think I would get an editor plugin and tweak some parameters and create something with great head feel on headphones. I expect the truth will be that it's a very expensive system affordable to Sony Studios and the like, and not for the hobbiest. To be determined.

  13. Obligatory? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Can someone please post the link to the XKCD comic about standards so they can be modded Funny/Informative?

    1. Re:Obligatory? by CronoCloud · · Score: 2

      By Your Command.

      http://xkcd.com/927/

  14. Mod parent up by Prune · · Score: 1

    At the time of posting, parent post is the only informative one in this discussion, and stands out among ignorant posts asking isn't OpenAL enough (this isn't about an API, FFS!) or being paranoid regarding DRM, things that would have been avoided had those posters RTFA and made sure they had minimum knowledge of the subject area before rushing to publicize their opinions.

    --
    "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
  15. directional headphones? by mspring · · Score: 1

    Does this mean when I'm listening via headphones and I turn my head that an accoustical source will stay in the same absolute direction, or does it stay in the same direction relative to my (turning) head which is today's headphone experience?

  16. Lake Technology did this years ago by Bandraginus · · Score: 1

    Surprised that it's taken this long to get to market. The technology has been around for years.

    Lake Technology in Australia pioneered this technology way, way back. Lake was bought by Dolby back in 2003 and the technology re-labelled as Dolby Headphone. Their technology uses HRTFs.