INTONATION AUDIO TECHNOLOGY INTRODUCE NEW SOUND TECHNIQUES

Intonation Audio Technology are an Irish company that are launching new techniques to recover lost digital information, preserve analogue sound integrity and allow analogue sound to be held in small files.

Intonation Audio Technology claims that using their new techniques, true lossless analogue quality music can now be downloaded in small file sizes.

Intonation Audio Technology claim true lossless analogue quality music can now be downloaded in small file sizes

DIGITAL AND ANALOGUE RECORDINGS

As we understand it, these technologies have a whole host of applications in the music and audio world.  For example, the developers claim that digital recordings, once the ghost audio technology and arc processes have been applied, will be ‘analogue’. Intonation says that this is not an AD/DA conversion, it is ultimately a DA/AA – AA re-build. These two processes work in tandem and in real-time. Intonation Audio Technology say that their technology “allows the vinyl to be realised as if printed from pure analogue”.

Intonation Audio Technology says: “this technology can be applied to any original audio file size. The original digital audio files are now realised as lossless 384kHz ‘natural’ quality sound from point of origin – not lossless from an indiscriminately compressed digital conversion – in tiny file size (3-8 MB). arcs’ 20-20 (Hz /kHz) ‘natural’ sound is designed to counter instances such as the controversial ‘hypersonic sound’. Intonation’s technologies can be applied to all types of audio media and will dramatically improve the digital audio recording process, seamlessly complementing and advancing developments including binaural and spatial audio and codecs such as MQA amongst others. We use the term analog to describe the richness of detail and warmth created by the arc process, not the kHz of analog media”.

INTONATION AUDIO TECHNOLOGY EXPLAINED BY DR KERRIN MCKENZIE

Developer Dr. Kerrin McKenzie explains: “Having experience working with tape and electronics from the late 1970s onwards, we began to have ideas which demanded exploration and testing. This was the start of a long enquiry into the technology behind digital audio recording, its limits, and its possibilities, particularly when we realised pure quality analog sound could be preserved in its entirety through our newly developed algorithms and AIA. The arc breakthrough, when it came, was incredibly exciting in enabling us to preserve pure quality analog sound in the digital domain. Meanwhile, we had also been working to see if we could reclaim the analog detail which was lost in digital recording. This resulted in the ghost audio technology process, developed to work concurrently with an arc. The final breakthrough was when we worked out how to reduce the file size without compromising the analog integrity of the sound, the process which we call mtt.”

INTONATION GHOST AUDIO TECHNOLOGY

Intonation’s ghost audio technology retrieves and further enhances, using a database of 2 million circulant micro samples, the vital lost (ghost) audio information often discarded through compression/processing, amongst other input discrepancies, during the original recording. This applies to both digital and analogue recordings.

INTONATION ANALOG RECOVERY CLASS (ARC)

Intonation’s arc (analog recovery class) then reconstructs these retrieved recordings to a 384/768 kHz ‘analogue’ quality state, preserving their original input integrity (as it would have sounded naturally to the ear in a live room).

These two processes work in tandem.

INTONATION MUSE TAPE TECHNOLOGY (MTT)

Intonation’s mtt (muse tape technology) is another new innovation from Intonation which reduces the file size by redefining how information is held. Building on the ghost audio and arc technologies, it allows the ghost/arc sound to be streamed and downloaded in small files sizes. For example, a file size up to 192 kHz 24 bit file of 1.47 GB is realised as a 384 kHz 64 bit file of 4.8 – 8 MB with, say Intonation, no loss of the natural sound, integrity, sonic information of the arc / ghost audio structure.

We are looking forward to hearing more about these technologies and their impact on areas such as music streaming in the future.

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