SRS WOW HD and Headphone 360 Demo

[Pete Paxton]

http://tinyurl.com/375jhh

"SRS Labs was in attendance at CTIA 2007, showing their audio technology and solutions. The name SRS Labs might not be familiar to many people, but if you've used Windows Media Player 10 or 11, and have ever gone into the enhancements settings to turn on SRS WOW Effects, you've used an SRS Labs product. SRS Mobile HD ships on a couple of Windows Mobile devices on the market, most notably the Motorola Q. I listened to a demo of a song using their big DJ-style headphones, and was able to toggle SRS Mobile HD off and on to hear what kind of a difference it made on the audio coming from the Motorola Q. Could I tell the difference? Absolutely. Were the changes for the better? That's a bit harder to figure out - the sound was certainly "bigger" (what's called having a "wider sound stage"). It sounded fuller - on the other hand, when listening to a different song, it seemed to over-drive the sound and cause distortion."



I've played with SRS WOW on my PC using Windows Media Player 11, but never on my Dash. It sounds like SRS Headphone 360 technology is very impressive, but according to Jason's blog, it will only be available on future devices that have it pre-installed. :? Good news is that better sound is in our future.

[Pete Paxton]

http://tinyurl.com/375jhh

"SRS Labs was in attendance at CTIA 2007, showing their audio technology and solutions. The name SRS Labs might not be familiar to many people, but if you've used Windows Media Player 10 or 11, and have ever gone into the enhancements settings to turn on SRS WOW Effects, you've used an SRS Labs product. SRS Mobile HD ships on a couple of Windows Mobile devices on the market, most notably the Motorola Q. I listened to a demo of a song using their big DJ-style headphones, and was able to toggle SRS Mobile HD off and on to hear what kind of a difference it made on the audio coming from the Motorola Q. Could I tell the difference? Absolutely. Were the changes for the better? That's a bit harder to figure out - the sound was certainly "bigger" (what's called having a "wider sound stage"). It sounded fuller - on the other hand, when listening to a different song, it seemed to over-drive the sound and cause distortion."



I've played with SRS WOW on my PC using Windows Media Player 11, but never on my Dash. It sounds like SRS Headphone 360 technology is very impressive, but according to Jason's blog, it will only be available on future devices that have it pre-installed. :? Good news is that better sound is in our future.

[Mike Temporale]

So, I find this interesting. I think we can all agree that the quality of the audio reproduction on Windows Mobile is less than par. It seems like the speakers are cheap, the headsets are cheap. There's no real control over the audio. I would think the first step in correcting this is to include a half decent set of speakers on the device. Then maybe go down the route of audio enhancements tools. But hey, what do I know.