New *Surround Processing* For Cans

[Ron Party]

http://www.3d60.co.uk/

The new album by David Gilmour and The Orb will be coming out in multiple formats, including CD, download, 180 gram vinyl, and, in a special 2 CD package which will contain an extra disc, featuring an alternative mix of the album in the new 3D60™ process, which creates a 360-degree sound experience when heard on headphones, using stereo tracks without the need for any special audio equipment.

Sounds like fun. Looks like I'm going to have to pick up a few different formats of this new album. And, it's David Gilmour! That'll work.

[Kal Rubinson]

Try this: http://www.smyth-research.com/products.html

It works with regular MCH recordings. Review in November Stereophile.

Kal

[Ron Party]

Very interesting, Kal. Are you doing the review?

[Kal Rubinson]

Yup. Did.

[amirm]

Smyth stuff is pretty neat stuff. It not not only simulates surround experience, but also the sound of your speakers and the room! It is uncanny to put on the headphones, take them off and listen to the speakers as if nothing had changed!

[tomelex]

I think if someone can get headphone soundstage to be more realistic and not try to grab all our brass then they could go far, as many of us enjoy headphones and certainly anyone under 20 pretty much has almost exclusively listened to cans or buds.

Tom

[DonH50]

Looks impressive! At $3360 it won't make my Christmas list, unfortunately...

[John72953]

http://www.3d60.co.uk/

The new album by David Gilmour and The Orb will be coming out in multiple formats, including CD, download, 180 gram vinyl, and, in a special 2 CD package which will contain an extra disc, featuring an alternative mix of the album in the new 3D60™ process, which creates a 360-degree sound experience when heard on headphones, using stereo tracks without the need for any special audio equipment.

Sounds like fun. Looks like I'm going to have to pick up a few different formats of this new album. And, it's David Gilmour! That'll work.

I just read about this yesterday and looks like a buy for me. And as you said...it's David Gilmour!

John

[bromide]

I was interested in this for my parents. The only problem is it imitates your room. So my parents have mostly mid frequencies coming out of a crappy built in speaker in the TV, in a large room with lots of solid surfaces, and poor dialog intelligibility... $3600 of advanced technology can accurately reproduce that experience for them. This is the one example where a pre-pro with different acoustic "settings" would have real application. Still no interest in simulating my favorite recording at the bottom of the ocean, but why don't they take samples of Lucas Film mixing environment so we can watch Star Wars and truly hear it the way the mixing artists intended? Or sample Paramount, other studios, or some ultra highend home theater.

I guess I don't get what someone with a $50,000+ audio system using conventional speakers would want with a pair of headphones that simulate what they already have. Same for someone with a crappy system. The value of simulating something is to experience something you don't have.

[Kal Rubinson]

I guess I don't get what someone with a $50,000+ audio system using conventional speakers would want with a pair of headphones that simulate what they already have. Same for someone with a crappy system. The value of simulating something is to experience something you don't have.

1. It does not have to imitate your room but can be set up to reproduce/simulate the sound of any setup and the box has multiple memories so that one can choose which setup to use.
2. Smyth has arranged to calibrate the system to reproduce the sound of mastering studios or other fine systems for their users.
3. Having the facility to reproduce one's own system, presuming it is a good one, allows one to listen to it at times and in places where it would otherwise disturb others or be impossible.
3a. Mastering engineers who rent studios by the hour can simulate that experience with the Smyth and greatly reduce costly rental expenses.
4. All this is in the literature and review: http://www.stereophile.com/content/music-round-45