PSB Speakers, founded by acoustics designer, Paul Barton and Audiodo, makers of personal audio technologies, have announced an agreement that will see Audiodo’s Personal Sound algorithms integrated into future yet-to-be-announced headphones from PSB Speakers.
This partnership marks the first time Audiodo’s technology will appear in a high-fidelity product.
“No two people hear the same things in the same ways,” explains Jenny Strömberg, CEO, Audiodo.
“Even hearing perception between the left and right ears of the same person can differ.”
Barton is one of the pioneers in incorporating psychoacoustic principles into speaker design. As one of the participants in the Athena Project led by Dr. Floyd Toole at Canada’s National Research Council in the 1970s, Barton has long believed that human perception of sound is as important in speaker design as the physical properties and behavior of sound and sound waves. Barton has brought that philosophy into PSB Speakers’ headphones through a technology called RoomFeel, which ensures that music that is recorded and optimized for listening in a room with various decorative and architectural characteristics still sounds natural when the room is essentially removed from the listening scenario and the speakers are pressed against the ear.
Sharing in PSB Speakers’ commitment to incorporating psychoacoustic principles into personal audio products like headphones, Audiodo’s Personal Sound technology will allow individual users to calibrate their unique hearing perception to the True-to-Nature sound signature of PSB Speakers’ headphones. Headquartered in Malmö, Sweden, the acoustics experts at Audiodo have over 30 years of specialized and cutting-edge knowledge of hearing calibration, personal profile calculation, and audio processing algorithms.
PSB Speakers point out that many factors affect hearing, including the shape and size of ears and ear canals, as well as damage to cilia from loud noises or infection. These combined with personal preferences and everyone’s unique neurological patterns means that the sophistication of human hearing as a sense is often taken for granted. Through a series of audio tests and questions, Audiodo’s technology creates a personal hearing profile for users that compensates for anomalies in sound perception and hearing abilities, allowing an individual to experience, unimpeded, the True-to-Nature sound signature PSB Speakers is known for.
“There’s a saying in high fidelity audio about ‘revealing sound’, meaning that a speaker has achieved high levels of accuracy and a listener will hear details in music that they hadn’t heard before,” adds Paul Barton, founder and chief acoustic designer at PSB Speakers.
“This collaboration with Audiodo is really exciting since it will enhance the listening experience so much more – in a way, revealing how revealing our speakers can be.”
