---
title: Personal Audio Reimagined
date: 2022-01-27T05:30:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/personal-audio-reimagined"
section: Articles
---
# Personal Audio Reimagined

*January 27, 2022* — by [Rachael Grahame ’17](/author/rachael-keeney-17)


> UMD Research Powers Company’s Systems That Compensate for Hearing Differences

*Shutterstock 709813228 1920x1080 — VIsisonics, a UMD spinoff company, is working with hearing and speech sciences researchers on 3D audio technology able to measure and adjust to an individual's hearing abilities.*

University of Maryland research was front and center at one of the nation’s biggest trade shows earlier this month, when new technologies that allow TVs, headphones and other audio devices to be customized to users’ unique hearing needs and abilities were presented at the 2022 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas.

The technologies—which go beyond entertainment applications by helping pilots better determine where sounds are coming from and users with hearing loss understand speech sounds—are part of the RealSpace 3D digital sound simulation suite developed by VisiSonics, a spatial audio technology company located in the university’s Discovery District. in 2009, VisiSonics was spun out of the [Perceptual Interfaces and Reality Laboratory](http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/labs/pirl/) run by Professor Ramani Duraiswami, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and UMD's Institute for Advanced Computer Studies.

One of the technologies the VisiSonics team showed CES attendees allows for audio personalization based on “head-related transfer functions,”—essentially, how the shape of our heads allow us to determine where a sound is coming from.

“All 7 billion of us have a different-shaped head, different-shaped body and especially different-shaped ears,” said Duraiswami. “These weird shapes that we have help the sound to scatter off them before the sound enters the ear canal, and when it does enter the ear canal, then your brain is able to find out where the sound is coming from by the way extra cues that have been added to the sound by that scattering process of your body.”

With the help of physics-based algorithms, VisiSonics has found a way to take those measurements from a handful of smartphone photos of an audio device user’s head and provide customized directional sound via a variety of speaker setups, from headsets to car audio systems. This technology has attracted customers that include Tesla, SpaceX, Oculus, Ford, BMW, and Andrea Systems, a communications systems and equipment supplier to the U.S. military.


*Woman wearing headphones while working on laptop*




**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Computer Science](https://today.umd.edu/topic/computer-science), [Hearing and Speech Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/hearing-and-speech-sciences), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [College of Behavioral and Social Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-behavioral-and-social-sciences), [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences)