Intel invests in L.A. audio start-up Audyssey
Sound- or music-enhancing services usually try to add to the audio to improve it.
Chris Kyriakakis would rather fix the sound so a consumer hears something resembling what a producer heard when originally mixing the file.
The USC electrical engineering professor’s Los Angeles start-up got a big-name backer. Intel’s venture capital group announced Wednesday that Audyssey was one of 16 start-ups receiving a chunk of $62 million in Intel Capital investment. Other start-ups are tackling issues such as building entertainment-focused wearable devices and analyzing data to ease the pains of traffic.
For Audyssey, the partnership with Intel is expected to bring the company’s audio-fixing technology -- already a staple in automobile and home theater systems -- to computers with Intel chips.
“We want to leverage people who have a bigger name than us,” Kyriakakis said. “Our main drive is to get our technology into other’s boxes or apps; it’s better than building a consumer brand.”
Audyssey is pitching its algorithms to hardware makers as a way to make their products stand out. Kyriakakis sees audio as one of the last systems on smartphones, tablets and PCs that manufacturers can charge a premium for. For Intel, a special audio tool would fit alongside parts such as finger-print scanners.
With Intel, Audyssey will try to optimize sound from the little speakers stuck behind metal or plastic. In a demo, Kyriakakis showed how playing music through an Audyssey app on an Amazon tablet could significantly raise the volume of music without degrading quality.
“Using just audio, we’re trying to make someone feel like they are in a different place than their living room with headphones on,” he said.
A separate Audyssey offering lets consumers enter the type of headphone or Bluetooth speaker they are using. The service then plays audio files in a way that adjusts for the unique characteristics of those headphones or speakers. To create the algorithms, researchers at Audyssey have draped hundreds of headphones over a mannequin outfitted with listening equipment.
To prove it works to manufacturers, Audyssey makes the same technology available to consumers through an app for iPhones and iPads. The recently relaunched app is free to download and try but costs $1.99 per headphone and $2.99 per Bluetooth speaker to use permanently.
“The difference is so obvious during the trial, people are buying it,” Kyriakakis said.
Kyriakakis, who grew up the son of a mathematician in Greece, founded Audyssey in 2002 to push his research out of academia. It also gave him the ability to walk through Best Buy with his son and show off his work.
His company’s next challenge is preparing for the ongoing boom in mobile devices.
“Anything that exposes you to the environment more than the comfort of your home increases the challenge dramatically,” Kyriakakis said. “That’s where we need innovation, but the only way to solve it is through algorithms, not by throwing bigger components at the problem.”
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