Sound Retrieval System (SRS) is a patented

psychoacoustic Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of sound perception and audiology—how humans perceive various sounds. More specifically, it is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated wit ...

3D audio processing technology originally invented by Arnold Klayman in the early 1980s. The SRS technology applies

head-related transfer function A head-related transfer function (HRTF), also known as anatomical transfer function (ATF), is a response that characterizes how an ear receives a sound from a point in space. As sound strikes the listener, the size and shape of the head, ears, ea ...

s (HRTFs) to create an immersive 3D soundfield using only two speakers, widening the " sweet spot", creating a more spacious sense of ambience, and producing strong localization cues for discrete instruments within an audio mix.Audio Basics newsletter, vol 10, (double) number 5 and 6, May and June 1991, pp2-3
/ref> SRS is not a Dolby matrix surround decoder but works with normal stereo recordings.

History and technology

Initially

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting p ...

, for whom Klayman was doing acoustic consulting at the time, offered a standalone SRS audio processor, as well as licensing the technology to

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

and

Thomson Thomson may refer to: Names * Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin * Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson Businesses and organizations * SGS-Thomson Mic ...

(

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

) for inclusion in their products. In the early 1990s, Hughes sold off its non-aerospace-related holdings, and a group of entrepreneurs formed

SRS Labs SRS Labs, Inc. was a Santa Ana, California-based audio technology engineering company that specialized in audio enhancement solutions for wide variety of consumer electronic devices. Originally a part of Hughes Aircraft Company, the audio division ...

to acquire the SRS technology. Many TV sets employ built-in SRS to make their built-in audio systems sound "bigger". An article in the November 1994 issue of

Consumers Digest Founded in 1959 and published by Consumers Digest Communications, LLC, ''Consumers Digest'' was an American magazine. It was based in Chicago. The last issue was published in February 2019. The magazine had no subscribers and did not test the pro ...

magazine tested several SRS-equipped sets from

and other manufacturers and concluded that the circuit was essentially a gimmick in these products due to their small, close-set speakers and low-wattage amplifiers. SRS is not a

panacea In Greek mythology, Panacea (Greek ''Πανάκεια'', Panakeia), a goddess of universal remedy, was the daughter of Asclepius and Epione. Panacea and her four sisters each performed a facet of Apollo's art: * Panacea (the goddess of universal ...

for audio systems that are marginal to begin with; it works best with full-range, high-fidelity sound reproduction. The company (publicly traded on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

under the symbol SRSL after a 1996

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

) since developed or acquired several additional audio technologies, including SRS Headphone, TruSurround XT, TruBass ("psychoacoustic bass enhancement to enable deeper, natural bass of audio source material to be perceived over small speaker drivers"), FOCUS ("sound-image elevation used in combination with SRS to create a large sound image", originally conceived for in-car listening), SRS Virtual Surround, Circle Surround, SRS Wow (an audio-enhancement suite made up of SRS 3D "wide stereo imaging and nonfatiguing headphone listening mode", Focus and TruBass) and SRS Wow HD, Dialog Clarity, and VIP, most using psychoacoustic principles similar to those employed by the SRS technology. SRS or one of its derivatives is offered in products from a wide range of professional and consumer audio manufacturers as well as in SRS's own small stable of products. The company derives most of its revenue from licensing its technologies, which it does in both silicon and software form. SRS Wow was implemented in many devices such as music players, and in software such as

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on ...

for playing sound on a computer.Microsoft: Changing bass, stereo and other audio effects in Windows Media Player
"You can enhance low-frequency and stereo sound performance by turning on SRS WOW effects". In 2012 DTS, Inc. acquired the business of SRS Labs, including over 1,000 audio patents and trademarks. The original SRS patents are , and , which expired between 2006 and 2008. Patents may apply in other countries

References

{{reflist

External links

Tech tips: How Stereo enhancements work?

Wayback Machine archives of SRS Web site
for many dates.
URL of former SRS Labs official site, redirects to DTS
Acoustics

History and technology

See also

References

External links