| QUOTE (Dale @ Jul 8 2004, 11:26 PM) |
Mr Ed,
Have you ever watch a DVD Movie with the volume turned down on a 5.1 or 7.1 Surround Sound System that has a subwoofer? There is practically no bass, the Subwoofer doesn't really produce any effect, you really have to have the thing cranked up to get the full rumbling effects of the bass frequencies. You ask why? Well the human ear doesn't work that well at low frequencies, its was basically designed to be more receptive to hear voice frequencies, which makes sense as that's how we communicate. |
Yeah, they've had this for years. It's usually called "loudness" and (for example) Yamaha amps have a dynamic loudness that adjusts automatically at lower volumes to compensate for that. It also ups the highs, where our ears are also not as sensative at lower volume levels. Even my Alpine car stereo had dynamic loudness. Some amps only have a loudness button that just boosts the highs and lows. Same effect, just not variable. As a Yamaha amp owner, I never have a problem hearing my sub at low volumes.
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| Well, with that in mind this new box eliminates that issue, the bass frequencies are adjusted into more ear responsive frequencies giving the illusion that there is more bass. |
Like I said, it's called loudness, we've had that for years.
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| As well as that, this box uses the positional sound information from DVD movies/games and puts the sound where its suppose to be by tricking us into thinking so. The sound is coming from one direction - infront, but this box gives the illusion that the sound is coming from behind us, over the top of us etc etc. Hard to believe I know? |
Not really. It's called hinting, and as you said it's a way of tricking your ears into thinking something is coming from a particular location by putting directional information that tricks our ears into the sound. Like I said, research a company called Base, they were doing this in the 80's with only two speakers. They did the surround sound for The Little Mermaid. Also, many of the 3D sound libraries for computers (I can't think of any names right now) include the ability to add hinting as well so people using headphones can still get "3D sound."
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With Traditional 5.1 or 7.1 you have to be standing directly in the middle of all the speakers to get the full effect of positional sound - ie AC-3 Dolby Digital. With this box you can be anywhere in the room, because what you are actually hearing to a certain effect is an illusion, sound is coming from infront, yet we perceive it to becoming from behind. Its basically tricking us into hearing where the sound is coming from.
Hope that makes a little more sense |
Makes perfect sense, all I'm saying is this has been done before, even back in the late 80s. Whatever happend to Base and their $200 processor box that would give you surround sound with only two speakers? I don't know, but in 1989 they looked really promising. All I can figure is Dolby queitly bought them out and shut them down because they wanted to continue to make systems that would sell more speakers and not less speakers.
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Topic: ***new Audio Technology - Great For Xboxes*** (Read 108 times)