Waves Consumer Ships Waves Nx 3D Audio on Any Headphone Set

November 1 2016, 03:10
Waves Consumer, the consumer division of Waves Audio, announced that it has started selling and shipping its first direct to consumer product. Waves Nx, is a completely new, user-centric listening experience that enables 3D audio on any headphone set with any content. The company also unveiled a website, www.waves.com/nx, where the general public is invited to learn more about 3D audio and purchase Waves Nx for $79.
 

Additionally, the company will be at VRDC in San Francisco on November 2-3 demonstrating its first VR application of Waves Nx 3D Audio Technology in its first ever game, Racket: Nx for HTC Vive. Racket: Nx is a futuristic fusion between single player racket sports like squash, and classic, brick-breaking arcade games. It is also the first game to feature Waves Nx 3D Audio Technology, which brings true-to-life sound spatialization that deepens your feeling of presence in VR.

“For decades, realistic, spatialized audio has been out of reach from consumers because the technology was extremely expensive and technical,” says Tomer Elbaz, EVP & GM Consumer Electronics Division of Waves Audio. “Waves Nx is a real revolution because for the first time ever, 3D audio is accessible to the masses, works on everyday headphones and is easy to set up. Waves Nx is a perfect complement for listening to music, watching movies, playing games, and even conducting conference calls."

Waves Nx provides 3D audio using just headphones and works with any headphones. Also, Waves Nx adds 3D Audio to any content, it doesn’t require music, video or games to be specially encoded. When available, Waves Nx allows playback of 5.1 or 7.1 content, realistically replicating the sound of several surrounding speakers on headphones. It’s also the only 3D Audio solution with head tracking that does camera-based head tracking, thus it can work with no external hardware, short of a set of headphones. The Nx Head Tracker lets users experience 3D Audio on a mobile device.
 

Waves Nx 3D Audio Technology recreates the same auditory cues our ears would hear in the real world, directly on headphones. For example, in the real world, when we perceive sound it usually reaches both our left and right ears at different times, however, with headphones this distinction is rarely considered as sound goes into left and right channels at the same time. Also, in the real world, our ears perceive sound bouncing off the walls of a room which give us a sense of environment. Again, most audio on headphones does not include these secondary sound waves. Waves Nx recreates these sounds by tracking the user's head position and positioning the sound in the user's headphones to mimic the way a user would hear it in the real world. Rather than flat and static sounding left and right channels, the result is a real, dynamic and variable sensory experience that sounds like speakers in a physical room, but on any set of headphones.

The Waves Nx Head Tracker and accompanying software works for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. It is available for $79 at www.waves.com/nx.
www.waves.com
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