Smyth Research's Realiser 16 - Up to 16 Channel Surround Over Stereo Headphones

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bmoura

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The Symth Brothers (the original developers of DTS) are back with a next generation product to their Realiser 8 which plays up to 7.1 Surround over Stereo Headphones using HRTF techniques.

The new Realiser 16 from Smyth Research will enable listeners to hear 5.1, 7.1 and the new Auro 3-D and Dolby Atmos systems (among others) over Stereo Headphones.
It was demonstrated at last weekend's High End Munich audio show and is heading for a Kickstarter campaign shortly.

If the new Realiser works and sounds as good as the Realiser 8, this could be a very impressive product!

Estimated price: $1,495 (less for Kickstarter supporters)
Release date: 1st Quarter 2017

Smyth Realiser 16.jpg

http://smyth-research.com/
http://smyth-research.com/downloads/Smyth Realiser A16 press release.pdf
http://smyth-research.com/downloads/Realiser A16 new datasheet.pdf
 
Hi All

Congratulations to the crew at Smyth, I have not heard it but the reports are great.

No criticism but it really amuses me about the constant battle to claim more and more "channels" - strikes me that if it doesn't work in 4 , try 5, then 7, then 9, then 11, then 22 and now Atmos.

How is it if you sit in the sweet spot with stereo you get an infinite positioning between left and right. I know we are all moving towards "object orientated surround"

Back to Smyth, I think I will buy one of these!

Regards

Chucky
 
Hi All

Congratulations to the crew at Smyth, I have not heard it but the reports are great.

No criticism but it really amuses me about the constant battle to claim more and more "channels" - strikes me that if it doesn't work in 4 , try 5, then 7, then 9, then 11, then 22 and now Atmos.

How is it if you sit in the sweet spot with stereo you get an infinite positioning between left and right. I know we are all moving towards "object orientated surround"

Back to Smyth, I think I will buy one of these!

Regards

Chucky

The current model (Realiser 8) works very well - albeit at a much higher price tag ($3,760).
It's the only product I've heard that gives credible Surround Sound over Stereo Headphones.

The new model is targeting the 3D Home Theater and Audio market. Allowing listeners to hear Auro 3D and Atmos encoded video and audio discs.
Along with dropping the price substantially. Interesting moves.
 
Hi All

Congratulations to the crew at Smyth, I have not heard it but the reports are great.

No criticism but it really amuses me about the constant battle to claim more and more "channels" - strikes me that if it doesn't work in 4 , try 5, then 7, then 9, then 11, then 22 and now Atmos.

How is it if you sit in the sweet spot with stereo you get an infinite positioning between left and right. I know we are all moving towards "object orientated surround"

Back to Smyth, I think I will buy one of these!

Regards

Chucky

I agree Chucky - the number of channels seems to have become an end in itself (regardless of what it actually sounds like!). With particular regard to the Smyth thing I really still don't get their fundamental design aim - i.e. that of emulating N playback channels in a room, rather than something that accurately reproduces the recorded environment. Seems to me they never hope to achieve anything better than being one stage away from the original. Funny looking contraption too!
 
No criticism but it really amuses me about the constant battle to claim more and more "channels" - strikes me that if it doesn't work in 4 , try 5, then 7, then 9, then 11, then 22 and now Atmos.
I am not going to engage in this argument since I am concerned only with music reproduction and, for me, it works superbly with 5-6 channels and I have not yet been convinced that more is needed.

How is it if you sit in the sweet spot with stereo you get an infinite positioning between left and right. I know we are all moving towards "object orientated surround"
Sure but with less stability than with, say, a discrete center source and with a narrower audio view than with a discrete center and a couple of discrete surround channels.

Back to Smyth, I think I will buy one of these!
Aha! Apparently, it has nothing to offer you since its purpose is to permit multichannel playback (which you abjure) over a pair of stereo headphones.

With particular regard to the Smyth thing I really still don't get their fundamental design aim - i.e. that of emulating N playback channels in a room, rather than something that accurately reproduces the recorded environment.
Hmmm. Let's say that you use the requisite number of microphones and channels to capture accurately "the recorded environment," how would you play it back? You cannot play it on a set of stereo headphones since so much of the information, perhaps, the majority, is lost in conflating it down to only 2 channels. OTOH, if you played it back on a system with the commensurate number of channels and speakers, you could approximate reproduction of "the recorded environment." Unfortunately, that requires a major investment in equipment and space, encumbers a loss of mobility and imposes high sound levels on others (unless the entire system is acoustically isolated). So, what Smyth has done is to reconfigure the sound information by employing the user's own HRTF to permit the reproduction of the "the recorded environment," as delivered by a big multichannel system, via conventional stereo headphones.
 
Hi Kal

Actually IF YOU SIT IN THE SWEET SPOT and use really good speakers such as electrostatics you get superb object positioning way better than the center channel lump under the TV. I will buy the Smyth as I want to hear it on 16 channels as a research tool/ comparison to what we are developing. I will use the dumb arguement of questioning the need for 16 channels with 2 ears, surely to replicate a true sound fields you will need more than 100 objects

Regards

Chucky
 
Hmmm. Let's say that you use the requisite number of microphones and channels to capture accurately "the recorded environment," how would you play it back? You cannot play it on a set of stereo headphones since so much of the information, perhaps, the majority, is lost in conflating it down to only 2 channels. OTOH, if you played it back on a system with the commensurate number of channels and speakers, you could approximate reproduction of "the recorded environment." Unfortunately, that requires a major investment in equipment and space, encumbers a loss of mobility and imposes high sound levels on others (unless the entire system is acoustically isolated). So, what Smyth has done is to reconfigure the sound information by employing the user's own HRTF to permit the reproduction of the "the recorded environment," as delivered by a big multichannel system, via conventional stereo headphones.

Hi Kal- That’s exactly the problem I have with the Realiser concept… it takes a recording and deliberately modifies it in an attempt to mimic what it might sound like if it was being reproduced by a multichannel speaker system in some arbitrary room. Not exactly what Peter Walker would have identified as “The closest approach to the original sound”! What I assume Chucky is attempting is to take the totality of the information contained within however many n channels and use it to reproduce, via headphones, what it would have sounded like if you had been in the recorded locale (not what it might have sounded like, ‘second-hand’ as it were, if subsequently played back in a hi-fi dealer’s showroom).
 
What I assume Chucky is attempting is to take the totality of the information contained within however many n channels and use it to reproduce, via headphones, what it would have sounded like if you had been in the recorded locale.

That's exactly what the current Realiser 8 product does. In fact, Smyth offers buyers the opportunity to get HRTF measurements at recording studios like AIX and others where Surround Sound music has been recorded and DVD and Blu Ray Movies have been mixed so they can hear the music and movies in Surround as originally intended.
 
Yep!

Hi Kal- That’s exactly the problem I have with the Realiser concept… it takes a recording and deliberately modifies it in an attempt to mimic what it might sound like if it was being reproduced by a multichannel speaker system in some arbitrary room. Not exactly what Peter Walker would have identified as “The closest approach to the original sound”! What I assume Chucky is attempting is to take the totality of the information contained within however many n channels and use it to reproduce, via headphones, what it would have sounded like if you had been in the recorded locale (not what it might have sounded like, ‘second-hand’ as it were, if subsequently played back in a hi-fi dealer’s showroom).
 
And we are going to do it from the 2 channel source, not the 5,7,9,12, 16, 60 and I have heard of up to 900 channels.
 
The Symth Brothers (the original developers of DTS) are back with a next generation product to their Realiser 8 which plays up to 7.1 Surround over Stereo Headphones using HRTF techniques.

The new Realiser 16 from Smyth Research will enable listeners to hear 5.1, 7.1 and the new Auro 3-D and Dolby Atmos systems (among others) over Stereo Headphones.
It was demonstrated at last weekend's High End Munich audio show and is heading for a Kickstarter campaign shortly.

If the new Realiser works and sounds as good as the Realiser 8, this could be a very impressive product!

Estimated price: $1,495 (less for Kickstarter supporters)
Release date: 1st Quarter 2017

View attachment 26028

http://smyth-research.com/
http://smyth-research.com/downloads/Smyth Realiser A16 press release.pdf
http://smyth-research.com/downloads/Realiser A16 new datasheet.pdf

Thanks for posting...very interesting....and at that price point very affordable..
 
Hi Kal- That’s exactly the problem I have with the Realiser concept… it takes a recording and deliberately modifies it in an attempt to mimic what it might sound like if it was being reproduced by a multichannel speaker system in some arbitrary room.
Not true.

Not exactly what Peter Walker would have identified as “The closest approach to the original sound”!
Not relevant. PW was speaking about issues constrained by 2 channels.

What I assume Chucky is attempting is to take the totality of the information contained within however many n channels and use it to reproduce, via headphones, what it would have sounded like if you had been in the recorded locale (not what it might have sounded like, ‘second-hand’ as it were, if subsequently played back in a hi-fi dealer’s showroom).
And I ask again: How do you do that?
 
Not exactly what Peter Walker would have identified as “The closest approach to the original sound”!

Not relevant. PW was speaking about issues constrained by 2 channels.

Au contraire. Peter Walker’s gloriously evocative phrase was used as an embodiment of the design ethos of the Acoustical Manufacturing Company Ltd. He wasn't speaking about any particular technology or of any constraints of stereo. I used it to remind those who need it, of the true aim of high fidelity music reproduction. As a goal, it is as relevant today as it was in the mono era. Unfortunately some people have strayed from his righteous path, doubtless seduced by the twin Sirens of home cinema and video gaming onto the rocks of audio mediocrity.
 
Not exactly what Peter Walker would have identified as “The closest approach to the original sound”!



Au contraire. Peter Walker’s gloriously evocative phrase was used as an embodiment of the design ethos of the Acoustical Manufacturing Company Ltd. He wasn't speaking about any particular technology or of any constraints of stereo. I used it to remind those who need it, of the true aim of high fidelity music reproduction. As a goal, it is as relevant today as it was in the mono era. Unfortunately some people have strayed from his righteous path, doubtless seduced by the twin Sirens of home cinema and video gaming onto the rocks of audio mediocrity.
In which case, multichannel reproduction advances that goal and the Smyth device helps with its convenience.
 
i'm curious about motifs of those, who put enormous effort into development of such gadgets.
from commercial point they aren't ones, which will gain any kind of sufficient market share.
 
i'm curious about motifs of those, who put enormous effort into development of such gadgets.
from commercial point they aren't ones, which will gain any kind of sufficient market share.

but headphones are taking off in a big way now so it makes sense to try and squeeze the surround sound experience from a pair of headphones ;)
 
Hi Otto

The advent of crap formats like MP3 and other compressed monstrosities have expanded the portable sound market. Also Dr Dre managed to market a $50 set of headphones at a $400 price tag and made it cool to use headphones (with pretty colours!). As a result the general price of headphones are now way up for the same cost.....this means profit!

Headphone are now becoming a major market.

Regards

Chucky

i'm curious about motifs of those, who put enormous effort into development of such gadgets.
from commercial point they aren't ones, which will gain any kind of sufficient market share.
 
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