Showcase app makes Apple iPhone and iPad headphones into 11.1 surround sound experience
Headphone:X, the surround sound headphone experience from DTS, is being ramped up in readiness for its commercial appearance early next year. DTS Headphone:X is an advanced new technology that enables content producers to capture the acoustics of a high quality audio production studio for faithful reproduction of an 11.1 surround sound experience on consumer headphones. On 1 November Qualcomm will begin shipping chipsets with embedded Headphone:X to a broad range of mobile device manufacturers. Geir Skaaden, senior VP for products and platforms at DTS, stated he expects Headphone:X to be seen more broadly by consumers in the first quarter next year as devices containing the Qualcomm chipsets hit the market. Also, next month Headphone:X technology will be incorporated within select models of media headsets from Turtle Beach. The technology is currently available as an app on Apple's App Store called Z+, which is showcasing the Man of Steel soundtrack, Ignition, by composer Hans Zimmer. Users download the app to their device and can hear it as it sounds in Zimmer's studio. They are then able to purchase the rest of the album, also rendered for Headphone:X. Later this month, the soundtrack for new film, Rush, will be added to the app.Skaaden added the technology behind DTS Headphone:X is crucial for capturing the attention of end users on the second screen: 'The small screen needs big sound. On a small screen, sound is the differentiator in keeping the user engaged, which is important as the small screen also includes the internet, the phone, social networking, cameras and more. So if the screen is small, sound needs to be big!'Headphone:X technology externalises and expands sound, so instead of listeners perceiving that the sound is inside their head as with traditional headphone listening, they experience it as coming from high quality loudspeakers located some distance around them.
