Tenson 0 Report post Posted March 1, 2011 (edited) Hi Guys, Long time no see, I haven't been to this forum for years!I recently went to the Bristol hi-fi show in England, and one thing completely blew me off my feet, which has never actually happens to me at a hi-fi show before! It was the Smyth Research headphone system. It has re-kindled my interest in headphones. I used to have a pair of AKG K1000 but sold them when I needed money. I still have a good speaker system. The Smyth Research product is a little box that can take any speaker system and the acoustic environment it's in (including surround up to 8 channels), and accurately reproduce it by a pair of good headphones. They provide Stax with the equipment. It doesn't sound that amazing when I say that, but when I say accurate I mean it. You can't tell the difference between speakers in front of you and the simulation. Actually in their demo I could because the headphones had over-all better quality. I told the guys I figured that the market for their product was not Hi-Fi geeks but the pro audio side. My friend for example is a composer and often works in his favourite studio in London, however he does a lot of work at home too. The problem is that his home studio is a converted small bedroom with no chance of giving him decent accurate monitoring, all he can fit is some small near-fields either side of his computer screen. If he mixes something at home, it invariably sounds different in a proper studio control room, or indeed on a domestic hi-fi. With this gizmo he could record the properties of the studios acoustics + monitors where he usually works, and have that exact same monitoring environment in his tiny home studio. Mix translation from home to studio would be perfect. He could even capture the sound of my hi-fi in my listening room or a stereo in a car and hear his mixes back just as though he were there. If the owner wanted to, they could hire the control room at Abbey Road or Air studio for example and capture the sound of that set-up and take it home with them. It's quite expensive at about $3000 but it does come with a pair of Stax headphones. The limitation is that you need a real environment and system to 'capture'. You wear some tiny in-ear microphones and play test signals through the system and acoustic environment you want to capture. It is personalised to that listener only, since everyone's ears are slightly different. I don't know how well generic simulations work if they are not captured using microphones in your own ears, but I gather it does work to some degree. In the case of domestic users I can see three main advantages being - Perfect alternative to a full speaker setup for late night listening. Get the soundstage out of your head 100%. If you have access to a great speaker set-up in a great room, you can visit, capture the setup on your Smyth box, then return home and have it to listen to whenever you want. I'm well excited Edited March 1, 2011 by Tenson Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
