According to Creative, the vast majority of audio tracks created today are meant to be played on external speakers, and as headphone users, we listen to this type of content all the time. This means that the audio is pumped directly into our ears, creating a claustrophobic soundstage where the sound seems abnormally trapped in our heads, which is acoustically wrong and, according to this manufacturer, assumes that good sound in the headphones is. a mistake.
How does Super X-Fi technology work?
In real life, the audio is spacious and deep; Everyone perceives sound differently depending on our individual and unique facial structures, as well as the shape of our ears. For a natural and expansive audio experience that is truly tailor-made for our individuality, the audio must be produced in the headphones based on how each person perceives sound in real life.
To do this, Creative uses a complex inverse calculation system to calculate how the audio signal from the headphones should be and thus reverse that claustrophobic effect they are talking about, again bringing out the source of the signal to make it appear natural, as if we were. in the real world. Additionally, Super X-Fi personalizes the audio experience provided by the headphones by drawing on each user’s unique profile, taking into account the complicated pathways of how external sound travels to the ears.
This is what they called holographic audio. Imagine capturing the listening experience of a high-end multi-channel speaker system in a studio and recreating the same expansive experience – with the same original depth, detail, realism and immersion – on headphones. By mapping the shape of the listener’s head and ear and transforming the audio according to these parameters using Super X-Fi technology, the audio is felt as if it came from outside of the helmet.
Super X-Fi technology is computer audio-based, using complex algorithms and computation-intensive techniques to personalize audio for each person through a sophisticated head and ear mapping process. Indeed, as you can imagine, for this audio to be realized, we must first allow the software, equipped with an Artificial Intelligence system, to first scan the shape of our head and our ears. . And how is this done? In the simplest way possible: go up photographs of our head from the front and in profile, as well as one closer to one of our ears.
Hundreds of anthropometric parameters are extracted from the characteristics of the head with great precision using a real-time image detection and analysis system. Then he Artificial intelligence engine
Using this synthesized card, Super X-Fi technology then recreates expansive, natural sound that delivers a personalized “magical” (according to Creative) listening experience for each individual user. For the end user, all this power is made simple and easy to use, since everything is done via an app on a smartphone. It’s as easy as taking pictures of the ears and head, then selecting which headphones to use; the software will do the rest.
A chip specially designed for this technology
The first incarnation of this comes from the hand of the newly created chip called UltraDSP, customized and specially designed for Super X-Fi technology. This chip is designed for Super X-Fi audio processing and offers 5 times more computing power than most of the brand’s Sound Blaster chips while consuming less than half the power.
This is a Integrated SoC It incorporates a huge cache memory optimized for audio processing at the highest possible speed, so that it is capable of 32-bit encoding and decoding of up to 8 high-resolution channels of 24-bit audio at 96 kHz simultaneously. In fact, it even has a built-in audiophile-grade DAC (analog-to-digital converter) that guarantees the best possible quality.
This SXFI chip can reside in the headphones themselves, although it also supports its inclusion directly in amplifiers or any other audio hardware device such as USB dongles for wireless headphones or it can even be installed in the headphones. smart televisions. Super X-Fi can also exist as just software technology, in this case using the CPU resources of the PC on which it is installed. This will obviously have the disadvantage of consuming system resources, so the ideal is of course to be able to have this UltraDSP chip directly in the audio hardware that will be used with the technology.
Later, Creative plans to make this technology available to developers so that they can implement it directly into their programs or even at the operating system level, since Creative’s goal is to work with all brands and audio manufacturers to extend this technology to the whole. world (this implies that we will be able to see Super X-Fi technology built into non-creative headphones, although they will surely charge royalties for their use).