Tagged Under:

YH-L700A Headphones Head Tracking Technology

Creating a virtual landscape with lifelike realism.

When someone says, “Look at me when I’m talking to you,” that’s when the situation gets real. Not necessarily because of the potential repercussions of choosing to look in the other direction, or even the authority of the person delivering the message. Rather, it’s that sound is directional — we can tell where it’s coming from. And when we’re able to track sound to its source, our perception achieves lifelike realism.

The same can be said of head tracking technology in Yamaha YH-L700A wireless headphones. It enables playback to respond in real time to the orientation of your head in relation to the device playing the content. When combined with 3D Sound Field capabilities, the result is an extraordinary level of realism, making you feel like you’re actually “there,” in the best seat in a movie theater or front row of a live concert.

Let’s take a closer look at how it works.

Stereo vs Head Tracking

Traditional headphones play music and video content in stereo. A stereo signal is comprised of two separate signals for your left and right ear — a left and a right channel. Listening with headphones in stereo creates the sensation of sound playing in your head. Wherever you look — up, down, left, right — the playback is the same.

Head tracking technology transforms the two-channel listening experience into a virtual landscape that is directionally-based. Sound playback is oriented by the location of your head, instead of being fixed in a stereo left-right sound field.

Man in his 30's with facial hair and tattoos on his lower arms is in front of a laptop wearing Yamaha wireless headphones. — *Photo courtesy @THETATTOOEDHUSBAND.*

With the head tracking feature turned on, the sound stays with the screen. A gyroscope inside the YH-L700A tracks your movement, keeping the arc of the sound angled to the screen in front of you. As your head moves through space, looking left or right, the audio is precisely localized in relation to the source, i.e., where it would naturally be coming from if you didn’t have headphones on. This adds lifelike realism to not only where you listen, but how you listen.

The head tracking technology in the YH-L700A is also an easy way to overcome listening fatigue. It works with content from any source — phones, tablets, computers and more.

The head tracking feature is enabled in the free Yamaha Headphones Controller app, available for iOS and Android™ devices.