Are headphones and earbuds doomed? Maybe. There’s new tech to watch.
Headphones and earbuds are a multi-billion-dollar industry and are generally seen as an area of music tech that’s safe. But is it really?
While they work great, headphones can be bulky and miserable to tote around. And who hasn’t lost one earbud requiring the purchase of a new pair? Wouldn’t it be great to take our music with us without working about something to perch on/in our ears? That’s where some new tech from Penn State comes in.
The university has something called “Audible Enclave” research. They promise that one day soon, we’ll be able to have private listening without the need for headphone/earbuds. We’re talking listening to music using a virtual headset.
How? They’re working on something similar to “3D beamforming” and “wave field synthesis.” If you’ve ever been to a show at The Sphere in Las Vegas, you’ve already experienced that. If you haven’t, it’s receiving near-perfect multi-channel audio no matter where you’re seated. It’s pretty freakin’ remarkable.
Music Radar describes things this way:
“Audible Enclave’s ultrasonic curved waves are inaudible, but can be fired and focused by metasurfaces – acoustic lenses that incorporate submillimeter-scale microstructures that bend the direction of sound – and where the two beams cross an audible air vibration generated, allowing the tech to create pockets – or enclaves – of sound that only ears present at the exact right physical position will be able to hear.”
There is still a lot of work to do–all they’ve managed is to beam a 60 dB signal one metre–but progress has been made.
Read more here.
