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Amazon Music HD expands 3D audio library with Warner Music Group tracks
Echo Studio, one of Amazon's latest smart speakers, might sound great, but until now it offered a limited library of 3D audio through Amazon Music HD. However, if you picked up the speaker and signed up for the hi-res streaming plan, you now have more 3D music options. You can listen to tracks from across the Warner Music Group empire in Dolby Atmos starting today.
Sennheiser's Ambeo 3D audio soundbar goes on sale in May for $2,499
Last year at CES, Sennheiser revealed a soundbar prototype with its impressive Ambeo 3D audio technology inside that offered an immersive 5.1.4 experience. At this year's show, the company is showing off the final version of the living room speaker and giving us an on-sale window: May. Sennheiser is also talking pricing -- you know, so you'll have a few months to get your affairs in order. That's mostly because the Ambeo Soundbar will cost $2,499 when it arrives this spring.
Audeze’s ambitious Mobius is more than a gaming headset
Tucked inside an unassuming office park just south of LA, there's a modest factory where some of the best audiophile-grade headphones are assembled on a daily basis. Audeze has built its reputation on planar magnetic technology, drivers that produce a more natural sound thanks to better frequency response and super thin components. During my visit, the company was making its final preparations to launch Mobius, a gaming headset that packs in audiophile sound and 3D audio to create a more immersive experience, especially for gamers. The company's headquarters is just under an hour from LA in Santa Ana. Here, all of the Audeze headphones are assembled. The company even makes its planar magnetic drivers in the modest production facility, a setup that allows it to put together everything by hand, closely monitor quality control and maintain a steady R&D pace.
Crowdfunded 3D headphone startup Ossic closes its doors
It's a sad time if you're a fan of 3D audio. Ossic, a startup that crowdfunded a pair of headphones that personalized 3D sound for your ears, has shut down due to a lack of funds. It successfully shipped a handful of developer-oriented units in January, but didn't have the money to mass-produce the devices for most listeners. There's no mention of customers getting refunds, although that's typical for crowdfunding efforts given that contributions are considered investments rather than guaranteed purchases.
Sennheiser packed its Ambeo 3D audio tech in a soundbar
Sennheiser has been touting the merits of its Ambeo 3D audio for a few years now at CES, but in 2018, the company plans to make that spacial soundscape more accessible. The first speaker product to feature the tech will be the Ambeo 3D Soundbar and the company is showing it off here in Vegas. Sennheiser has been working on 3D audio since 2010, when it was recording classical performances in 9.1 surround sound. Until now, you needed a 9.1 speaker setup to really appreciate that level of detail, but later this year, all you'll need is a soundbar.
Yarra 3DX soundbar uses an app to shift the audio sweet spot
Our latest audio demo at CES 2018 came from Comhear's highly-anticipated first consumer device, the Yarra 3DX. While soundbars claiming audio superpowers are a dime a dozen, the Yarra 3DX has been through two successful crowdfunding campaigns (on Kickstarter and Indiegogo) on the strength of its beamforming chops. With a DSP tied to each of its 12 33mm drivers, the company says this speaker is capable of delivering binaural audio precisely to listeners and can create up to three audio sweet spots, all controlled via its app. We got a peek at the Android version of the app, which can be used for beam selection, presets and more. With a simple slider, the operator could shift the audio focus around a virtual room, and switch the speaker between near or far-field operation.
LG's OLED TVs now pack loss-free 3D audio
There's a dirty secret to listening to Dolby Atmos sound on LG's current OLED TVs: all the audio is compressed, so you're losing a little fidelity for the sake of immersive 3D sound. You won't have to make that sacrifice before long. LG is trotting out an update later in October that will add support for lossless Dolby TrueHD audio to all its 2017 OLED sets. If you're watching a 4K Blu-ray movie (the most likely candidate for TrueHD support), you can hear jets soaring overhead at maximum quality.
Samsung is helping Sennheiser bring 3D audio to Android
When Sennheiser unveiled the first earbuds to use its Ambeo 3D audio technology, it limited them to iOS users. Are they ever going to come to Android? Yes, apparently -- with some help. Sennheiser has revealed that it's partnering with Samsung to bring Smart Surround's binaural, recording-based sound to Android devices. The company's Andreas Sennheiser says the collaboration is necessary for "credibility." South Korea is "one of the most technology-savvy countries," he says, and makes an ideal testing ground for new hardware. We'd add that Samsung is also the dominant Android phone maker, so any support from its side virtually guarantees a solid foothold in the market.
Sony's new PlayStation headset is premium in name alone
There's no shortage of gaming headsets on the market, and in an effort to distinguish themselves, manufacturers are turning to gimmicks to stand out from the competition. Sony, for example, has several PlayStation-branded pairs, and now it's adding another to the mix, in hopes that 3D audio will be enough to earn your $150. After spending some time with the new PlayStation Platinum Wireless Headset, though, I'm not sure it deserves its asking price.
Sennheiser Ambeo headphones record your surroundings for better audio
Binaural audio replicates the natural listening experience for a user. It captures the soundscape as it's heard by human ears. When played back, it creates an immersive audio experience that has been acknowledged as a significant component of virtual- and mixed-reality experiences. But the technique hasn't made a mark on everyday listening experiences yet. Movies, games and music are still widely experienced in stereo sound.
LG's next headset is a wearable surround sound speaker, too
Sometimes you want to listen to music without having something in or on your ears. That's the desire LG hopes its new Tone Studio wearable speaker will address. The new horseshoe-shaped unit features two full range speakers up up and a pair of vibrating ones, a digital to analog converter and DTS 3D surround sound. If you're feeling generous, you can even pair two of the devices together and share audio from a single source.
3D audio is the secret to HoloLens' convincing holograms
The streets of Microsoft's campus are lined with tall fir trees. A drive through lush, green urban woods reveals dozens of nondescript buildings. Minibuses shuttle employees across the company's 500-acre headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Inside Building 99, a concrete and glass structure that houses Microsoft Research, Ivan Tashev walked through the quiet halls toward his lab, where he devised the spatial sound system for HoloLens. Tashev leads the audio group at Microsoft Research, which is the second largest computer science organization in the world. For HoloLens, a mixed reality headset that places holograms in your immediate environment, his team worked on a sound system that creates the illusion of 3D audio to bring virtual objects to life.
Paramount signs up to release more movies with DTS:X audio
We got a chance to hear the audio capabilities of DTS:X at CES in 2015, but there haven't been many movies released that way so far. Now Paramount seems ready to change that, signing up with DTS to release a "collection" of films with the multi-dimensional audio encoding applied. Some of the Blu-rays are already on shelves, like The Big Short and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, but there should be more on the way. Like Dolby Atmos, DTS:X is supposed to align audio in a way that fits with where your speakers are actually positioned, and as we saw in our demo, allows for features like turning up the volume on dialogue without affecting other sounds.
Sennheiser's 3D audio for VR feels totally natural
Sennheiser announced its 3D audio platform AMBEO at CES this year, and today at SXSW I got a chance to try a VR demo and see how it sounds. Using a standard pair of headphones and a stock Gear VR, I was transported into a church where a lone piano player sat a few feet in front of me. As she began to play, I looked all around the virtual room -- and the audio mix adjusted on the fly, no matter how I moved, to keep the piano's audio rooted exactly where it should be in the virtual space.
For VR to be truly immersive, it needs convincing sound to match
I'm staring at a large iron door in a dimly lit room. "Hey," a voice says, somewhere on my right. "Hey buddy, you there?" It's a heavily masked humanoid. He proceeds to tell me that my sensory equipment is down and will need to be fixed. Seconds later, the heavy door groans. A second humanoid leads the way into the spaceship where my suit will be repaired.
Sennheiser's 3D audio will finally make VR complete
Virtual reality is incomplete without immersive audio. Even though you might be able to strap on a headset and be visually transported, the absence of 3D audio can quickly break your illusion. With stores getting ready to stock VR headsets this year, the need for an audio experience that can match, and even enhance, the visuals is more pressing than ever. Today at CES, Sennheiser announced AMBEO, a 3D audio technology that promises to change the way audio is captured and reproduced.
I visited Jurassic Park in VR and tried to pet a dino
Imagine you're in a dense forest with the largest lizard-like creature that has ever walked the planet. It's just you and the Apatosaurus, one of the many dinosaurs featured in Jurassic World. You sit and watch her sleep from a few feet away. It's strangely calm, but you want to plan your escape anyway. You look around and see a Jeep with a bold red stripe on your left. There's nothing but lush sunlit trees to your right. In front of you, the giant sprawled on the ground starts to move a little. You should probably panic, but the creature doesn't scare you. Not yet. She slowly wakes up and notices you. As she plonks her heavy feet on the ground, you cringe reflexively. Her long reptilian neck swoops in to sniff you. Her nostrils flare and her big blue eye looks right at you. Now you're scared. But you reach out to pet her, anyway.
Divemachine's 3D audio tech adds motion-tracking sound to VR headsets
You slave over trying to match the 3D visuals of the Oculus Rift with its audio equivalent, and then what do you do for a promotional image? Someone in an Oculus rift and earphones, and a pair of rendered speakers. Job done. Fortunately, Divemachine is making good progress with its immersive audio system. While VR headsets continue to get better at movement detection and the whole visual-realization-of-a-3D-space thing, audio's not had so much attention lavished on it. Genetec's Divemachine platform involves collaboration with environmental sound designers, and connects Oculus Rift headset movements to audio, creating what it's calling full 3D sound.
Ear Monsters for iOS uses 3D audio to drive gameplay, kill monsters
Ear Monsters (US$1.99) is an arcade-style iOS game with a twist. Unlike most games on the iOS App Store, Ear Monsters uses 3D audio to drive gameplay instead of video. Ear Monsters is about a monster invasion through wormholes. At first, the monsters are visible and you're easily able to take them out with a satisfying tap on the wormhole they arrived through. However, soon they arrive invisibly, which makes killing them a lot more difficult. Fortunately for us, you can still hear them arriving. And that's where focusing on what you're hearing instead of what you're seeing becomes really important in Ear Monsters. Naturally, you need to play Ear Monsters with your headphones! Ear Monsters takes a little bit of time to adjust to. But once you get used to it, it becomes an incredibly challenging and rewarding game to play. Gameplay starts off easily with just three wormholes. The monsters appear in the wormholes one at a time with a visual and audio cue. Once you're skillful at killing the monsters, the visual cue disappears and you're left with just the audio. As you progress, more wormholes appear. At its hardest, Ear Monsters has 14 wormholes. On top of that, there are bombs to contend with too. Thankfully air support arrives every so often to give you the opportunity to acquire some bonus help. Ear Monsters has drawn attention in the visually impaired community for its audio driven gameplay. Developer Brian Schmidt has written a very interesting blog post on the development of the game and how he tailored it to the visually impaired community. If you're interested in game development and accessibility, particularly on iOS, it's well worth checking out. I enjoyed playing Ear Monsters. At its heart, it's a simple arcade-style scoring game. However, with gameplay driven by audio, it provides something totally different resulting in challenging, addictive, bite-size fun. It's definitely worth checking out, and I look forward to seeing how it develops in the future.
The Expendables 2 Blu-ray ships November 20th and is the first one with 11.1 channel DTS Neo:X audio
Just when we were getting used to 7.1 channel surround sound audio tracks on our movies, our friends at High Def Disc News have pointed out Lionsgate's announcement of The Expendables 2 on Blu-ray that cranks the audio up to 11 -- 11.1 to be exact. The extra channels come courtesy of the new DTS Neo:X codec which includes support for speakers in the front mounted both high and wide to create more of a 3D audio effect that can simulate planes flying overhead or a car driving past. While those who have upgraded their receivers and added extra speakers will mostly experience the effect thanks to upmixing, it does allow for an 11.1 audio track with the extra channel info matrixed into a standard 7.1 audio track. Of course, with a supercharged action flick like TE2 there should be plenty of explosions to give any audio system a workout, and now we have one more reason to check it out when it's released November 20th (just beating the also Neo:X ready Step Up Revolution to the punch.) Beyond the audio there's also several making-of featurettes if you need more Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme in your life, plus UltraViolet and regular Digital Copy; all of which is currently available for pre-order on Amazon for $27.99. Check out a press release with all the specs plus a theatrical trailer for the movie and a video explaining DTS Neo:X audio after the break.
