Article: Tigerfox Immerse 360 Review

[mForMusic]

@The Computer Audiophile Thank your for raising the questions that came to my mind as well. I agree that in-ear microphones would be the best way to compare the Immersive 360 to an actual multi-channel setup.

 

On the topic of accuracy: Hi-fi traditionally aims for reproducing music "the way the artist intended". It's impossible to know what the musician(s) intended (many of them don't care too much about their exact placement in the mix anyway), so the artist in this sentence is the mastering engineer. Mixing and mastering engineers usually intend that their work sounds as good as possible on any sound system, but it's reasonable to try and get as close as possible to what they heard. Maybe we can even reproduce some more details with the very best electronics and speakers, but the general concept should be the same in my opinion.

 

When we look at mastering rooms for two-channel recordings, almost all of them are set up in a traditional stereo triangle. In most cases, the rest of the room is a compromise of having as much absorption as possible with the amount of reflective surfaces needed for humans to feel comfortable. (Check out Northward Acoustics' Front-To-Back Room Concept to see what's considered state of the art in this field). So the goal is to hear as much direct sound from the speakers and as little reflections from the room as possible. The Tigerfox Immersive 360 does the exact opposite - it adds lots of reflections all around the listener. I imagine that the resulting effect can be fascinating and also may sound better (subjectively) than the usual wall/window reflections in a typical domestic room. But the claim that this sound is more accurate and "cleaned up" seems far-fetched to me. I don't thing mixing/mastering engineers imagine sounds coming from behind when working on two-channel music - everything they hear takes place in front of them.

[bobfa]

I want to think a bit more broadly here.  It is my understanding that there are surround processors that can "extract" surround information from two-channel data.  There is stand-alone hardware that does the same such as the Schitt SYN (which I have a loaner in-house). What are these systems doing to my ear in the case of the SYN? Improve the playback experience with multiple speakers.  Create a more immersive experience?  There is more here than meets the "ear."

 

I can say for a fact, to my ear!   The Immerse 360 and the Schiit SYN provide a more pleasing immersive musical playback experience with existing two-channel recordings.  I can also say that many of the ATMOS recordings I have heard on my 7.1.4 system are a step above in experience.  

 

How many mixing systems use DSP correction to fix for the first time of arrival and speaker system design issues like the hangloose convolver does, rather aptly?  I do not presume that mixing and mastering the be-all-end-all of this process.

 

I really encourage others to dig into this deeper from the view of science and from the side of how humans perceive sound.  I would like to understand  how these things work.  

 

 

[STC]

The science behind this is rather simple to understand. The pod is basically a small horse shoe auditorium. A room in room. The sound of such design had been studied extensively in concert hall design. The effect would be rich sense of envelopment of sound wrapping the listener. A more focused sound. 
 

Is it immersive?  Is it 3D? That depends of the understanding of the the true meaning of immersive or 3D is audio. You have heightened feel of sound coming from all direction due to reflection. Can the inherent stereo interaural crosstalk be reduced or masked?  No. 
 

ATMOS, multichannel , Aura 3D and others are just a step forward to deliver closer to the  binaural sound to the listener.  Even stereo too is an early attempt to produce the front stage to match the cinema screen. 
 

So what 3D sound is encoded in stereo recordings that need to be retrieved? None. You only need to ensure that they are delivered correctly to the ears so that the brain is convinced that the sound from the soundscape of stereo phantom stage are real sound as one would hear in natural event. 
 

 

 

 

[STC]

Any system that supposed to minimize the crosstalk will produce better separation of the instruments and clarity. It will help to distinguish sound that generally goes unnoticed in conventional stereo playback. The difference is obvious ( provided done correctly) and overall more natural experience.

 

This can be easily demonstrated by using your standard stereo.

 

For examples:-

 

1) Listen to Sonny Rollins Solitude in Way Out West. With crosstalk cancelled system you will notice the clinging sound isolated and floating separately. Previously, this sound was not even noticed n typical stereo despite its being there. But once you heard them in the crosstalk cancelled system you would now also notice it in stereo.

 

2) Peiju Lien - Whisper (MA Recording). You will hear bird chirping ( very faint and not part of the intended recording) but that sound was so buried that it will not be easily detectable although audible in typical stereo playback. When I thought it was a bad recording, I was told I was hallucinating but it’s there and audible but without crosstalk cancellation or reduction it would not be distinct and standard out among other sound.

 

These difference are the result of 3D production of the stereo playback. This can happen if TF360 is doing some sort of masking of the inherent IAC.

 

Whether the sound of TF360 is similar to ATMOS playback can easily be proven with a $100 binaural mics. The difference would be obvious. But I understand why one would hear them similar like ATMOS…..the brain is good at recreating the sound scene in the head based on what’s previously heard. A simple binaural mics would prove otherwise.

[jjraffin]

A question - besides the great immersive effect you get here, could this also be a workable solution for a working from home setup to keep noise out?

 

If I could fit a smallish desk for a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and my Genelec speakers, I'd be very happy. I'm losing a study room soon, and could use this as my "office" as needed.

[Archimago]

@ROPolka: Wondering as part of the R&D process, what "standard" speakers did you use to develop this product with?

 

As per discussions, this device is a "room within a room" product that introduces boundaries for the purpose of creating reflections all around the listener. As such, do you have any measurements you can show of the change in frequency response with and without the Tigerfox360 in a typical room you're testing this in? This might help the consumer understand the accentuations in frequency response we might see for speaker selection.

 

Also, I'd be curious about potential comb filtering effects.

 

Thanks.

[Archimago]

On 7/21/2023 at 6:59 PM, jjraffin said:

A question - besides the great immersive effect you get here, could this also be a workable solution for a working from home setup to keep noise out?

 

If I could fit a smallish desk for a monitor, keyboard and mouse, and my Genelec speakers, I'd be very happy. I'm losing a study room soon, and could use this as my "office" as needed.

 

Great question. Would definitely be interesting to know if there's any kind of "isolation" effect outside the cubical of sorts.

[bobfa]

38 minutes ago, Archimago said:

 

Great question. Would definitely be interesting to know if there's any kind of "isolation" effect outside the cubical of sorts.

I do not feel that the noise reduction is enough if there are others in the room.  It is better than the old cubical walls in offices in some ways.  

[Archimago]

9 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I do not feel that the noise reduction is enough if there are others in the room.  It is better than the old cubical walls in offices in some ways.  

 

Thanks. I assume if you were to hear some isolation, it would only be the higher frequencies being attenuated. (Hence related to the question about frequency response change above.)

[bobfa]

I have not measured the difference between standing outside and sitting inside.   I "feel" the ambient sound reduction when I sit down.  

[ROPolka]

 

My comments to bobfa for his excellent report about the TigerFox® Immerse 360® sound system to the audio community

 

Thank you bobfa, for an outstanding job of accurately explaining this new immersive audio product and technology (the physics-based TigerFox Immerse 360 sound system) that’s not only entirely different, but complicated, difficult-to-describe, and even more confusing-to-understand. 

 

Those familiar with your strict, factual-based reporting appreciate your well-researched and objective review that gives credibility to this illusive product and helps convey the value of its unique experience to others in the community. More so, I’m humbled to say, than the train-wreck of the TigerFox360.com website itself!  

 

Your report now allows those who have had legitimate reservations about what it is and how well it works, to understand it better. Especially those who have not personally experienced what it’s capable of doing by revealing and enhancing the immersive content otherwise hidden inside of stereo recordings.

 

I feel it helped immensely that you are also closely familiar with an incredible top-quality Atmos 7.1.4 immersive object and speaker-based system that was setup by you right next to the TigerFox Pod to critically compare its immersive audio results to! This adds even more authority to this report.

 

The 5 Most Important Take-Away Points

After taking some time to reflect, I think the most important 5 take-aways in your report to the audio community (correct me if I’m off) are that:

 

1. You communicated quite well that the TigerFox Pod is able to convey the important emotional experience, or the feeling that’s often missing or not able to be fully experienced in the playback of a sound recording. 

 

As you explained in the first paragraph of your report, the Pod is able to really put you there like experiencing the indescribable sound of coyotes in the wild.

 

2. Your assessment and important affirmation that individual sounds heard in the 2 speaker TigerFox Pod system were spatially positioned around the listener at the exact same locations as a meticulously-setup 12 speaker Atmos system! 

 

Like you explained with Pink Floyd’s Time from the Dark Side of the Moon, even tho the recordings were different, the sounds positioned by the Pod were “uncanny” in their locational accuracy. 

 

This is most important to communicate to the community because the Pod faithfully positions sounds around the listener as they were positioned in the recordings. If originally well positioned, they are not generalized or only a nice “effect”! 

 

3. It is important to those considering a TigerFox Pod that you actually preferred listening to an original recording in the TigerFox Pod over listening to its new mastered version in the fully setup 12 speaker Atmos system. 

 

As you mentioned, for example in your reference recording of Spiral, “Sitting in the Pod enhances the sound of the entire experience”. 

 

4.  I was very happy and encouraged to read in your overall final assessment that you felt “torn inside” when having to choose between the TigerFox system and the Atmos system. 

 

This was especially notable after spending over a year with the Pod and after comparing the two systems over time and with many different immersive recordings. 

 

This is also valued information when considering the significant differences in size, setup, numbers of components, and the sheer cost disparity between the 2 immersive systems!

 

5. It was also noted that you explained very well in your report something rarely mentioned in audio reviews - that the Pod breaks the audiophile cost-benefit principle. That is, $6,000 speakers and $20,000 worth of electronics are not needed to achieve the high-end immersive improvements that the Immerse 360 provides. 

 

This is because: (a.) by removing the massive sound corrupting effects of the room, (b.) by repairing speaker crosstalk, and (c.) by precision time-aligning the speakers’s direct sound with the large quantity of otherwise lost indirect sound, even $150 speakers, other low cost electronics, and simple streamed music can be upgraded by the Pod to achieve ultra-high-performance music playback results.

 

However, even after intuitively understanding the new audio synergism that results when the Pod effectively removes these prior sound reproduction problems and limitations, the Pod is not believable! 

 

As bobfa will testify, this totally new audio physics-based technology only becomes believable when it’s been personally experienced.

 

Thank you, again, bobfa. 

 

Audiophiles can look forward to your leading the way in explaining to the community the subtle details of high performance immersive audio which are finally here for music lovers to fully enjoy, both in its complex electronic forms and now in its complex acoustical physics form with the TigerFox Immerse 360.

 

Hats off to you!

[ROPolka]

On 7/26/2023 at 9:31 AM, Archimago said:

 

@ROPolka: 

As per discussions, this device is a "room within a room" product that introduces boundaries for the purpose of creating reflections all around the listener. As such, do you have any measurements you can show of the change in frequency response with and without the Tigerfox360 in a typical room you're testing this in? This might help the consumer understand the accentuations in frequency response we might see for speaker selection.

 

 

[ROPolka]

Answering your request for some typical room measurements with vs. without the TigerFox360 Pod, here is a copy of a page from one of our issued patents.

 

It shows dB measurements around the room both without (Figure A - the Control) and with various sized Pods (Figures B, C, & D) where the sound is coming from the same two speakers in the same location (1aL and 1aR) in all figures.

 

Measurements were taken at the same locations in the room.  For reference, a dB of 6 is considered either a doubling or halving of the sound volume.

 

if you look behind the listener's location (behind 19A) on this page (outside of the Pod) at the underlined dB measurements in Figures A and B, you will see the dB difference between a given location in the room without the Pod (67 dB is seen in Figure A (the Control) vs. the dB at the same location with the soundboard wall in place (58 dB as seen in Figure B). This is a drop of 9dB at the same place in the room with vs. without the soundboard wall in place. 

 

Looking at other locations in the room in Figure A vs Figure B, you'll see other dB measurements in the room with vs. without the TigerFox pod in place.

Fig. H dB tests 026.tiff

[ROPolka]

Added Note: These measurements were taken in a typical room with vs. without the TigerFox Immerse 360's soundboard wall in place in dB which shows the total sound from the speakers (1aL and 1aR) and not broken down into the individual frequencies as you originally requested. Even tho the frequencies are not individually shown, hopefully this information will help you with your question.

 

Let me know any further questions in this regard!

[ROPolka]

On 7/20/2023 at 9:27 PM, STC said:

.the brain is good at recreating the sound scene in the head based on what’s previously heard.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

18 minutes ago, ROPolka said:

Answering your request for some typical room measurements with vs. without the TigerFox360 Pod, here is a copy of a page from one of our issued patents.

 

It shows dB measurements around the room both without (Figure A - the Control) and with various sized Pods (Figures B, C, & D) where the sound is coming from the same two speakers in the same location (1aL and 1aR) in all figures.

 

Measurements were taken at the same locations in the room.  For reference, a dB of 6 is considered either a doubling or halving of the sound volume.

 

if you look behind the listener's location (behind 19A) on this page (outside of the Pod) at the underlined dB measurements in Figures A and B, you will see the dB difference between a given location in the room without the Pod (67 dB is seen in Figure A (the Control) vs. the dB at the same location with the soundboard wall in place (58 dB as seen in Figure B). This is a drop of 9dB at the same place in the room with vs. without the soundboard wall in place. 

 

Looking at other locations in the room in Figure A vs Figure B, you'll see other dB measurements in the room with vs. without the TigerFox pod in place.

Fig. H dB tests 026.tiff 24.23 MB · 0 downloads

I believe he asked for frequency response information, and you provided decible information. Do you have any frequency response measurements? Do you have anything close to industry standard measurements?

[ROPolka]

Just a note about our human ability to remember sound. 

 

That's an interesting thought.

 

I have not had the same experience of people being able to remember the sound even for a very short time.

 

For example, when doing comparative A/B tests using the same content and keeping everything in the system the same but just changing one component to evaluate it's + or - affect, most people I've noted have a very difficult time comparatively remembering the sound between just 2 close together tests of the same content to the point where we need to keep the listening length down to about 15 seconds.

 

It seems any longer than that (even using the same content) and doubt creeps into their ability to remember A vs. B.

[ROPolka]

20 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I believe he asked for frequency response information, and you provided decible information. Do you have any frequency response measurements? Do you have anything close to industry standard measurements?

Even tho individual frequencies are not done for these decibel room measurements, hopefully this information will help others understand how sound from the speakers is generally attenuated at many different locations around a typical room by the Immerse 360 for nearby non listeners as requested earlier for a possible home office use. 

 

These general dB measurements, as thought in another post, would attenuate mostly the higher frequencies of the audio content being played.  

 

Note too that bothersome non-listener sound depends both on the volume of the sound from the speakers and by the content being played in the Pod (natural rain sounds and background forest sounds are usually not bothersome to those nearby while being greatly enhanced at the listener location by the Pod) 

Furthermore, because the Pod is made for near field playback (your speakers are only about 36" from your ears) and because the sound volume from the speakers is greatly reduced within the Pod enclosure, low volume would be heard by those nearby while "normal" listening volume can be enjoyed by those in the Pod's sweet spot. 

(It's interesting to take a close look at the dB comparisons at the listener location (19a) inside the Pod vs at different locations around a typical room in Figure H, resubmitted here for reference)

Fig. H dB tests 026.pdf

[botrytis]

People remember that low frequencies, say 250 Hz down, are omni-directional. As the frequencies go up, they tend to beam more. This is why I said previously, that it is the higher frequencies that give positional information. This all gets mucked up with bad speaker positioning and/or room acoustics.

 

Rick, maybe you should explain your background, so they know this is based on physics and how we perceive sound.

[ROPolka]

On 7/20/2023 at 9:27 PM, STC said:

Whether the sound of TF360 is similar to ATMOS playback can easily be proven with a $100 binaural mics.

Good news! 

 

The average person doesn't need special binaural mics or complex measuring devices to reliably determine whether a soundtrack's sounds are heard in the same physical locations around the listener in the TigerFox Pod as with an ATMOS playback of the same soundtrack.

 

This is easily and quickly determined. 

 

One's ears alone can easily hear the exact locations of individual sounds positioned around the listener both in a special ATMOS playback version of a soundtrack and using the original version of the same soundtrack in the TigerFox Pod.

 

Also, those sound locations around the listener are immediately obvious in the TigerFox Pod.  Their locations are not subtle. One simply needs to test this for themselves.

 

This, of course, assumes that one has normal, balanced hearing. And assumes that ATMOS had positioned the sounds in their special playback version in the same location as in the original stereo version.

 

Positioning observation: After listening to more than 50 such dual recordings (ATMOS & stereo versions of the same soundtrack) streamed with Tidal using various playback devices and in the TigerFox Pod with an assortment of speakers, I have not personally heard individual sounds positioned in noticeably different locations between the ATMOS and the original stereo version of the same soundtracks.

 

Does this help answer your question?

 

[botrytis]

I think what the gent was asking was, does the tigerfox reflect all frequencies equally? That could easily be done with an cellphone, a frequency sweep generator, a calibrated mic, and a dB meter app for the phone. Setup the system, put the mic stand where a person would sit, height of ears when sitting and then play the frequency sweep generator through the audio system.

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, botrytis said:

I think what the gent was asking was, does the tigerfox reflect all frequencies equally? That could easily be done with an cellphone, a frequency sweep generator, a calibrated mic, and a dB meter app for the phone. Setup the system, put the mic stand where a person would sit, height of ears when sitting and then play the frequency sweep generator through the audio system.

Rick is deliberately avoiding the measurement discussions. 

[botrytis]

I don't believe he is, Chris. I can say this after meeting Rick. This is not his only job, so that is part of it.

[STC]

6 hours ago, ROPolka said:

Just a note about our human ability to remember sound. 

 

That's an interesting thought.

 

I have not had the same experience of people being able to remember the sound even for a very short time.

 

3 hours ago, ROPolka said:

The average person doesn't need special binaural mics or complex measuring devices to reliably determine whether a soundtrack's sounds are heard in the same physical locations around the listener in the TigerFox Pod as with an ATMOS playback of the same soundtrack.

You just contradicted yourself. 
 

Echoic memory lasts just few seconds. But sound scene is reconstructed based on prior knowledge. Just place your phone on the other side of the place you usually put and you will notice that when the phone rings you would naturally hear as if it is coming from the side where you usually put them. Once you realized it’s not there then the localization cues are used to find the phone. 

[botrytis]

One can calculate speed of sound to a reflection point from a source and then to the ear. This is one aspect as is the information from the recording. Also, ear shape and reflections have to be added also. This can all be modeled, it isvery complex math but it can be done.

 

It really is amazing to listen to. I know my rig, I used for the CAS meeting, where the TigerFox was demoed, was overkill, it was stellar to listen to.  At the end of a fun audio meet. L to R: a friend of mine, Pat, my wife, Rick, and yours truly.