Listening to music while walking down the street, travelling on long distance trains, camping on a hilltop/forest… wireless technology has dramatically changed the way we record and consume music.
With Wi-Fi acoustic technology continuously evolving – Bluetooth, noise-cancellation, surround sound… we are witnessing a paradigm shift from the earlier ‘rich and clear’ audio experience to a ‘high-quality and blissful’ one whereby consumers are demanding high sound quality in their headphones and speakers.
So here are some technologies to look forward to:
Bone Conduction
This technology makes it possible for one to enjoy music privately while keeping an ear on the world around them at the same time. A headphone like band goes around the back of the head and ends rest on the bones of the skull, thus freeing your ear.
This technology uses transducers that emit sound waves at a frequency that helps it travel through the bones of the skull and onto the inner ear. So you can hear high quality sound without using the outer ear.
3D Soundscape
While the eyes can only see up to 200 degrees at a time, the ears listen in 3D, and it can distinguish sounds from different angles. This technology allows sound designers and composers to create a fully immersive 3D audio environment by placing and moving sound anywhere. It tries to replicate the way our brain perceives sounds in space as it allows one to program distance, height and orientation. So the volume of an audio piece between the left and right ears will change depending on movement of sound track.
Nuraphone
Each one of us is different, our construction of body and sense organs are unique – we hear differently. So instead of using the ‘one size fits all’ earphones, Nuraphone uses its self-learning technology to measure a person’s hearing and fine-tunes the audio to optimise it to a person’s ear. It splits the melodic sounds to an in-ear speaker and the bass sounds to an over-ear tactile speaker that delivers the sound through the person’s skin as if he was hearing it live.
Mindset – Smart Headphones These headphones can read your mind while playing the music of choice. The small EEG electrode on the headphone continuously measure electrical signals emitted by the head and learns from the emotions. They can track your interest, concentration and reactions and likewise adjust the sound quality.
Moreover, as one wears them regularly, they get to know more about the peaks and troughs, adapting likewise to enhance the ultimate experience
-Manoj Mahanta
Team ScienceNow
