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Apple iOS 16 will include Ear scanning technology to improve Spacial Audio!

AdamG

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Interesting development. Looks like you will be able to use your IPhone to scan and map your ear canal to create custom eq for Spacial Audio application.

Ear Scanning Article

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mkt

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The genelec thing does a 360 scan too but does not seem consumer oriented.
 

thewas

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I have AirPod Pro’s now. I use them mostly to watch tv/movies in bed at night. They have Spacial Audio functionality and it’s pretty cool. Definitely improves the sensation of surround sound with earbuds. Coupled with active noise cancellation it beats all the high end gaming headsets I have owned including the highly rated Astro A-50. Very impressed now, so am excited to see how this plays out. Will it be mostly gimmick or actually make a difference? At present, AFAIK, Apple has not fully disclosed what if any existing kit this will work with. If it does work with what I have now. Will be happy to give my impressions if anyone is interested.
 

Zensō

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I have AirPod Pro’s now. I use them mostly to watch tv/movies in bed at night. They have Spacial Audio functionality and it’s pretty cool. Definitely improves the sensation of surround sound with earbuds. Coupled with active noise cancellation it beats all the high end gaming headsets I have owned including the highly rated Astro A-50. Very impressed now, so am excited to see how this plays out. Will it be mostly gimmick or actually make a difference? At present, AFAIK, Apple has not fully disclosed what if any existing kit this will work with. If it does work with what I have now. Will be happy to give my impressions if anyone is interested.
Definitely! I have the Airpod Pro and the Airpod Max. Happy to share my experience as well.
 

sifi36

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Anyone used this yet? The setup was a bit finicky, but I got it eventually. It seems to work better if you keep the phone out in front of you and turn to show it your right and left ear. Annoyingly, you can’t enable and disable the custom HRTF for easy side-by-side comparisons. As such I can’t decide if I prefer it or not. I wonder if the “spatialise stereo” option is using the custom HRTF too or is just trying to infer spatial information from the variance between channels, as it was before the update.
 
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Tks

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How this could possibly do anything of value for Airpods for example is beyond me (and honestly, even Airpods Max). For the Max, you can maybe throw together some mumbo jumbo in-house nonsense they got going for pinna activation (but that would mean they've done any actual research of merit considering this concept). But then I don't see how that becomes irrelevant seeing as how you can't get deep in-ear scans?

Also, I'm not seeing how to toggle this for simply AB testing anywho? Or how this effects the already "adaptive EQ" occurring with their products anyway.
 
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How this could possibly do anything of value for Airpods for example is beyond me (and honestly, even Airpods Max). For the Max, you can maybe throw together some mumbo jumbo in-house nonsense they got going for pinna activation (but that would mean they've done any actual research of merit considering this concept). But then I don't see how that becomes irrelevant seeing as how you can't get deep in-ear scans?

Also, I'm not seeing how to toggle this for simply AB testing anywho? Or how this effects the already "adaptive EQ" occurring with their products anyway.
Think you pretty much nailed it. I tried this last night. First off it was difficult to just find the option to get it started. Once I did figure that out the instructions/directions were vague. You have to do a full front face/head scan 1st, that was easy enough. But then you have to scan each ear. By holding the phone 8-12 inches out and directly facing your ear. You can’t see what you’re doing and it’s not ergonomically simple. I suggest having someone to help you with this part. As I had no help, after a half dozen attempts it kept failing. I had to set up multiple mirrors to be able to see where the phone was in relation to my head directly to the side. Getting the phone camera in the exact correct position was difficult at best. After another dozen attempts I finally got one ear scanned. Repeat this again for the other side. Finally done I progress to the demonstration part and I hit a dead end. From what I was able to gather at this point it only works if you have Apple Music. Which I don’t. Additionally I have to override my already loaded Audiogram data to get this to work. I called it quits because there is no way that this scanning at 12 inches away of my ear, not really my ear canal, is going to be as correct/accurate as the Audiogram data I already have.

My final impressions were that this is an Apple Music Promotion thing. Figuring if you were able to physically complete the scanning process you will feel invested enough to join Apple Music to be able to use and test the results. Imho, just do/get an Audiogram and load that data into the phone. It will result in a far more accurate audio curve suited to your hearing capabilities. There are several ways to get an Audiogram done. I used an app. It was pretty simple and straightforward process. I used the Mimi Hearing Test App (linked below). There are other such apps so pick one that works best for you. This one is free and does allow you to do a full hearing test for each ear using headphones you already own. Some of these Hearing Apps will try to get you to buy a membership or pay some fee or register. You decide what your willing to do. As best I recall the Mimi app was free, but I think you have to create an account.

Mimi App
 

Ata

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I can apply custom EQ to my Airpods Pro in iOS16 -- how? Or, is it only available for the new Airpods Pro 2?
 
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I can apply custom EQ to my Airpods Pro in iOS16 -- how? Or, is it only available for the new Airpods Pro 2?
Go to Settings, Audio/Visual, Headphone Accommodations, Custom Audio Setup. See linked instructions and list of supported headphones/earphones. Hope this answers your questions?

Customize headphone Audio
 

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My final impressions were that this is an Apple Music Promotion thing. Figuring if you were able to physically complete the scanning process you will feel invested enough to join Apple Music to be able to use and test the results.
Enlightening and disappointing. Given your final impression that it's just bait and promotion for Apple Music, perhaps this should go under the Snake Oil thread? Thanks for the effort, sparing others the wasted time and added frustration of repeating your experience,
 

kthulhutu

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Not really interested unless it can generate a SOFA file (fat chance with Apple).
 
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Enlightening and disappointing. Given your final impression that it's just bait and promotion for Apple Music, perhaps this should go under the Snake Oil thread? Thanks for the effort, sparing others the wasted time and added frustration of repeating your experience,
Others may have a more positive result than I did. If you have Apple Music it might be worth the physical gymnastics? I never made it past this requirement stage. So my half assed attempt was met with more frustration by the Apple Music account requirements. Would have been nice had the Instructions page noted that this only works if you have an active Apple Music subscription. Therefore my effort and results may not be typical or reflective of the end result.

But yeah, to me it was very much like Bait to subscribe to their proprietary music service.
 

Astoneroad

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Others may have a more positive result than I did. If you have Apple Music it might be worth the physical gymnastics? I never made it past this requirement stage. So my half assed attempt was met with more frustration by the Apple Music account requirements. Would have been nice had the Instructions page noted that this only works if you have an active Apple Music subscription. Therefore my effort and results may not be typical or reflective of the end result.

But yeah, to me it was very much like Bait to subscribe to their proprietary music service.
I hate that pattern of bread crumbs, thinking that you're on the path to get what you came for at the end... only to hit the Pay Wall. If there was in fact instructions or a disclaimer that to complete the process an Apple Music subscription is necessary, no problem, then it's not Snake Oil IMO. Absent that respect to the applicant at the beginning, it's smells oily to me. Just a thought, but it seems that in addition to the mirror that you found useful, a tripod for the iPhone might mitigate the frustration that seems inherent in the process.
 

DeLub

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I agree the setup is somewhat cumbersome , but I was able to scan both my ears in about 1 minute.

I’ll check tonight but I’d assume it would also work with spatialise stereo (which I’m not a fan of) and other multichannel sources.
 
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I agree the setup is somewhat cumbersome , but I was able to scan both my ears in about 1 minute.

I’ll check tonight but I’d assume it would also work with spatialise stereo (which I’m not a fan of) and other multichannel sources.
I just knew someone would come along and say it was easy and sounds great! It’s the Internet after all :D
 

kthulhutu

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Think you pretty much nailed it. I tried this last night. First off it was difficult to just find the option to get it started. Once I did figure that out the instructions/directions were vague. You have to do a full front face/head scan 1st, that was easy enough. But then you have to scan each ear. By holding the phone 8-12 inches out and directly facing your ear. You can’t see what you’re doing and it’s not ergonomically simple. I suggest having someone to help you with this part. As I had no help, after a half dozen attempts it kept failing. I had to set up multiple mirrors to be able to see where the phone was in relation to my head directly to the side. Getting the phone camera in the exact correct position was difficult at best. After another dozen attempts I finally got one ear scanned. Repeat this again for the other side. Finally done I progress to the demonstration part and I hit a dead end. From what I was able to gather at this point it only works if you have Apple Music. Which I don’t. Additionally I have to override my already loaded Audiogram data to get this to work. I called it quits because there is no way that this scanning at 12 inches away of my ear, not really my ear canal, is going to be as correct/accurate as the Audiogram data I already have.

My final impressions were that this is an Apple Music Promotion thing. Figuring if you were able to physically complete the scanning process you will feel invested enough to join Apple Music to be able to use and test the results. Imho, just do/get an Audiogram and load that data into the phone. It will result in a far more accurate audio curve suited to your hearing capabilities. There are several ways to get an Audiogram done. I used an app. It was pretty simple and straightforward process. I used the Mimi Hearing Test App (linked below). There are other such apps so pick one that works best for you. This one is free and does allow you to do a full hearing test for each ear using headphones you already own. Some of these Hearing Apps will try to get you to buy a membership or pay some fee or register. You decide what your willing to do. As best I recall the Mimi app was free, but I think you have to create an account.

Mimi App
Yeah if you look up Genelec Aural ID instructions they are a lot more rigorous. This is definitely not something you can do yourself.
 

Tks

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Think you pretty much nailed it. I tried this last night. First off it was difficult to just find the option to get it started. Once I did figure that out the instructions/directions were vague. You have to do a full front face/head scan 1st, that was easy enough. But then you have to scan each ear. By holding the phone 8-12 inches out and directly facing your ear. You can’t see what you’re doing and it’s not ergonomically simple. I suggest having someone to help you with this part. As I had no help, after a half dozen attempts it kept failing. I had to set up multiple mirrors to be able to see where the phone was in relation to my head directly to the side. Getting the phone camera in the exact correct position was difficult at best. After another dozen attempts I finally got one ear scanned. Repeat this again for the other side. Finally done I progress to the demonstration part and I hit a dead end. From what I was able to gather at this point it only works if you have Apple Music. Which I don’t. Additionally I have to override my already loaded Audiogram data to get this to work. I called it quits because there is no way that this scanning at 12 inches away of my ear, not really my ear canal, is going to be as correct/accurate as the Audiogram data I already have.

My final impressions were that this is an Apple Music Promotion thing. Figuring if you were able to physically complete the scanning process you will feel invested enough to join Apple Music to be able to use and test the results. Imho, just do/get an Audiogram and load that data into the phone. It will result in a far more accurate audio curve suited to your hearing capabilities. There are several ways to get an Audiogram done. I used an app. It was pretty simple and straightforward process. I used the Mimi Hearing Test App (linked below). There are other such apps so pick one that works best for you. This one is free and does allow you to do a full hearing test for each ear using headphones you already own. Some of these Hearing Apps will try to get you to buy a membership or pay some fee or register. You decide what your willing to do. As best I recall the Mimi app was free, but I think you have to create an account.

Mimi App

Honestly, this scanning thing seems more like a data hoard for their next IEM and headphone designs (an ergonomic goal). Imagine eventually some day, half of the smartphone user-base provided you with a 3D scan of their ear shape, the amount of accurate and appreciable averaging for the sake of ergonomic design would be highly useful.
 
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