Sound Retrieval System (SRS) is a patented

psychoacoustic Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of the perception of sound by the human auditory system. It is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated with sound including noise, speech, ...

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) 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, ear canal, density of the head, size and shape of n ...

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

Initially

Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace company, aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes ...

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

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

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 M ...

(

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

) 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 divisio ...

to acquire the SRS technology. Many TV sets employ built-in SRS to make their built-in audio systems soundstages "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 p ...

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

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) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

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 corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP, officially referred to as Windows Media Player Legacy to retronym, distinguish it from Windows Media Player (2022), the new Windows Media Player introduced with Windows 11) is the first media player (application soft ...

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

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

History

See also

References

External links