Mix Magazine - December '13 article "Surround Now"

[elmer]

Pretty interesting article in last month's Mix Magazine on current and future developments in DTS' Headphone X and 11.1 sound. Elliot Scheiner and others have some pretty positive comments. If true (some healthy skepticism here), then it could be a big shot in the arm for the surround community.

At the very least, a cool tidbit regarding an upcoming project (scheduled for Spring '14) by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis - mixed by Elliot Scheiner.

you can read the entire article here;

http://www.mixonline.com/122013/

 

[leevitalone1]

wow! really interesting shit! It seems like there is no new hardware to buy except the phones. I'll keep eyes on this and when it does come to light, we all will be probably getting it.

 

[mdmost]

I downloaded the Z+ Rush app. The demo of the 11.1 localization is astounding. It would be great to be able to get 5.1, 7.1 and 11.1 sound out of a 2 channel headphone. I'll be watching this develop with great interest.

 

[peterzach]

Thanks for the article, this is interesting stuff.
Well this is embarrassing as I just use a flip phone for work and have not got into the whole Iphone or Android world as rather spend money on surround titles than cell phone stuff and cell phone plan's in Canada cost around $100 a month if you get data etc.
Is it only through a cell phone and app that you can test this out or can you download this to a computer and try it out?

peter

 

[IMachine]

wow! really interesting shit! It seems like there is no new hardware to buy except the phones. I'll keep eyes on this and when it does come to light, we all will be probably getting it.

They say that you can use every headphone.

 

[steelydave]

I'm surprised they haven't done this sooner - I remember demoing a 2-speaker KEF mini-system that has some kind of virtual surround in London in about 2002 that was playing that IMAX super speedway DTS DVD, and the surround effect was uncanny, if you were right in the sweet spot it sounded like the cars were behind you. I kept turning around to see where the rear speakers were, and there were none. It should be even easier to do with headphones because the listening environment is even more isolated, so there are less positional factors, etc.

If DTS turned around tomorrow and said they had a $100 encoder that would allow me to convert all my 5.1 material to 2 channel 'headphone surround' FLAC files, I would be the first person in line.

 

[IMachine]

I'm surprised they haven't done this sooner - I remember demoing a 2-speaker KEF mini-system that has some kind of virtual surround in London in about 2002 that was playing that IMAX super speedway DTS DVD, and the surround effect was uncanny, if you were right in the sweet spot it sounded like the cars were behind you. I kept turning around to see where the rear speakers were, and there were none. It should be even easier to do with headphones because the listening environment is even more isolated, so there are less positional factors, etc.

If DTS turned around tomorrow and said they had a $100 encoder that would allow me to convert all my 5.1 material to 2 channel 'headphone surround' FLAC files, I would be the first person in line.

I'm really curious about their progress, but I think I prefer surround music through speakers, because the deep vibrations move your body. Headphones are always an isolated experience.

 

[elmer]

I think it's safe to say that most of us here would prefer the same. However, the overwhelming majority of music "listeners" get their tunes via mobile devices. If this application can turn on more people to the joys of surround, the end result could be more content mixed into surround, so forth and so on. There are,of course, many obstacles to overcome - besides the technical ones. The biggest ones are the record labels - for all the reasons that we so often vilify them for (namely greed and stupidity). But here we are still debating the possibilities of the future of surround. So I will be on line with SteelyDave should/if this comes to fruition (as I stare at my dormant HD DVD player).


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[leevitalone1]

They say that you can use every headphone.

need glasses bad!

 

[Bob Romano]

The demo with Zimmer's calling out the speaker positions is far more impressive than the actual tracks - most notably that the sides and rears are significantly more pronounced than the fronts which makes sense physically

I would agree here. I was more impressed though by the abliity to "hear" the surrounds. I did not "hear" height at all. And the music just sounded like a mess to me. And I tried in three different pairs of headphones. What ever happens, I hope they mix that Jam and Lewis for my home theater in surround and not just headphones. That would be much more exciting to me.

 

[bmoura]

I would agree here. I was more impressed though by the abliity to "hear" the surrounds. I did not "hear" height at all. And the music just sounded like a mess to me. And I tried in three different pairs of headphones. What ever happens, I hope they mix that Jam and Lewis for my home theater in surround and not just headphones. That would be much more exciting to me.

I know that with the Smyth Realiser 8 system, the Surround Sound results vary quite a bit depending on the quality and flat frequency response of the headphones used. So I wouldn't be surprised to learn that DTS-X would benefit from better quality headphones - and suffer from ones that don't meet those criteria.