Hi All
I have been asked by "Four Rules" for an update on what we are up to......here goes.
As you may know we have been dabbling in headphone surround with the general philosophy that the "edge" we may have is we have (not modestly) the best stereo to surround sound converter that combined with an improved headphone surround hrtf would be an interesting product. Particularly as we noted if someone could solve the largely ignored problem of no proper frontal image.
I note that there are more and more entries to this headphone surround market,
Waves NX,
3D Sound labs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iGaEb-aM8s
And a bundle of others that my old frail memory forgets. I have been very unimpressed by all of these including the wrong idea of multiple drivers in each cup. We have reached a point in our development that we have succeeded in moving the frontal image somewhat out of the center of the head but not enough in my opinion. In addition it looks like there is roughly 15 different ear/ head combinations that have to be catered for. In short we have reached a stage where we need to get into very heavy mathematics and DSP programming.
In short I am thinking about suspending temporarily research in this area as it is really fast becoming a "me too" area with a bunch of products that do not work all primed to confuse a gullible sheep like market.
So given I may duck for cover on this for a while our small R +D team will focus on the following priority list:
1 Two channel surround based on an update of the Y2 system, I do not know of other STEREO systems that can do this in any seat in the room and we have proved that we can. I have internal pressure to work on a sound bar (yuck) but again in my humble view the market on sound bars is already saturated, hope I win this arguement!
2 The involve preamp has been progressing slowly and we are playing with the OLED display module. I really want this product myself.
3 CD4 surround for the SM, have not started yet but at least it is scheduled.
I hope the above clarifies things
Regards
Chucky