What is Sound Beaming and How will It Change the Way We Listen to Music?
The general trend in technology follows a specific direction: deep into our bodies. Yes, it sounds like science fiction — and, maybe like that dystopian sci-fi in Black Mirror. A long time ago, the only way to listen to music was live; then, when they invented the record player in 1877 and the magic of technology arrived in homes: it was already possible to listen to the same music over and over again at home through a rather rudimentary metal amplifier. Then came the radio ten years later, and, long after that, the cassette and the Walkman, and the CD and the Discman, and MP3 technology and the iPod, and streaming technology and the smartphone, and Bluetooth speakers…, and so on, all the way to what we know as Sound Beaming.
Everything is getting closer. Technology is becoming more corporeal every day. In short, integrated systems of lenses and microchips — such as those developed by Elon Musk’s Neuralink — will replace smartphones; and this will constitute a preliminary step to an absolute singularity between machines and our bodies, permanently connected to the Internet.
Sound Beaming is a good example of the course technology is taking. What is it? In a nutshell, 3-D Sound Beaming technology, developed by Noveto Systems, is a way of tracking human ears to send sounds directly to them. The sound reaches each user via ultrasonic waves, and, unlike any type of sound output you’ve known so far (including headphones,) it’s not amplified in a particular space. It reaches your brain, and, in this way, pockets of sound are created in your ears. The sound can be heard in stereo or in a 3D spatial mode that creates a 360-degree sound all around you. In addition, not requiring the use of headphones allows you to still hear other sounds in the room. The device also offers the option to modify the settings so that the sound can follow you when you move your head. It is also possible to move out of the way of the sound waves and yet not hear anything.
Can you imagine that? Well, you won’t have to understand it, and neither will your brain, as Christophe Ramstein, CEO of Noveto, explains. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s more real than the screen you’re looking at right now. This kind of technology brings sound so close to us that it feels like it’s booming inside our ears. However, it’s not just in there: it also seems to be in front of, above, and behind them.
No one is inventing the wheel here: it’s a concept that has been in the works for some time. Noveto uses a sensor system similar to those of the latest iPhone X. The algorithm does not detect the human face to unlock the phone but calculates the distance between the device and human ears to send ultrasonic waves using small speakers that are constantly focused. Thus, if you move your head the sound follows you without disturbing third parties. The Laboratory of Acoustics and Electroacoustics of the University of Parma (Italy), explains it in these terms: a 2D dome array hung from the ceiling as a “chandelier”. It is used to create and move virtual sources above the listener’s head. (…) The main principle of focalization is that the signals feeding each speaker are each delayed by a constant time minus the fly-time from the speaker to the focus point. In this way, all speaker signals will arrive at the focus at the same time. This creates a concave wavefront which ‘implodes’ in the focus and ‘explodes’ again into a convex front.
To this extent, what is revolutionary here is what Noveto Systems has achieved: launching the first desktop device that brings all this science into the most palpable technology for ordinary use.
This disruptive improvement, of course, raises questions about what’s next. How will it affect things as we know them, and what other applications might there be besides entertainment? Noveto expects the device to have several practical uses, from allowing office workers to listen to music, or conference calls without interrupting their colleagues to allowing someone to play a game, movie or music at home without disturbing family members or roommates. However, it could also be implemented in the military industry, since the use of radios on the battlefield could disappear after all.
We do not know what is exactly coming, but it is possible to envisage certain scenarios now. One of them has to do with the increasingly individual and immersive experience of listening to and enjoying music. Everyone will be in their bubble. Streaming music personalization services, thanks to the development of increasingly precise algorithms, as well as the growing metaverse trends, will probably restrict the collective experience of music to concerts and clubs (and perhaps not even that…). The other thing is that it will be much more comfortable not to have to use headphones to listen to music, podcasts, the audio of the videos you watch, or the voices of your interlocutors in your phone calls. You won’t get tangled with more wire, nor will your AirPods lose their charge in the middle of a wonderful moment.
Similarly, revolutionary technologies like these will bring about changes in the way music is made, as well as mixed and processed. For this, the knowledge of experts such as Enhanced Media Sound Studio will be necessary for the proper production of your sound projects.
