Spinoff story

Real World Audio

A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.

About this technology

Overview

Crystal River Engineering was originally featured in Spinoff 1992 with the Convolvotron, a high speed digital audio processing system that delivers three-dimensional sound over headphones. The Convolvotron was developed for Ames' research on virtual acoustic displays. Crystal River is a now a subsidiary of Aureal Semiconductor, Inc. and they together develop and market the technology, which is a 3-D known commercially today as Aureal 3D (A-3D). The technology has been incorporated into video games, surround sound systems, and sound cards.