Jason-RiggsTwo years ago, not very many people were thinking about how important audio was going to be for consumer VR. Jason Riggs was pitching what would eventually become OSSIC by claiming that it was going to be the Oculus for audio headphones. Two years later, his prophecy came true when his OSSIC X Headphones raised over $2.7 million dollars on Kickstarter, surpassing Oculus as the largest virtual reality crowdfunding campaign ever.

There’s clearly a lot of demand for high-end, immersive audio for VR, and Jason’s vision for where he wants to see the future of spatialized audio go has started to be realized. Beyond the VR applications of OSSIC X headphones, part of their success was that it could also have an immediate impact on existing 2D games with spatialized sound as well as recreating the sound of a home theater sound system.

I had a chance to catch up with OSSIC founder and CEO Jason Riggs at SVVR Conference where we talked about the technology behind OSSIC, dynamic HRTF measurements, how to quantitatively and qualitatively measure the accuracy of their 3D audio solution, and the challenges facing a potential open standard for 3D audio and that contain audio objects.

LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST

Here’s the Kickstarter video that inspired over 10k contributors.

Support Voices of VR

Music: Fatality & Summer Trip

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Kent Bye
  • spetznack

    Did you get to try the headphones? Was it as good as they claim it is? :P

  • Raphael

    None of the existing surround headphones provide positional audio… just a wide spacial image. If these worked I’d buy.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    As long as it’s wireless and doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg..

    • Robin

      Wireless would mean too much latency for VR

  • avrame

    How is the OSSIC X different than these already available 3D headphones? https://www.amazon.com/3D-Sound-Labs-Audio-Headphones/dp/B017KW3KBQ

  • Robin

    Wireless would mean too much latency for VR.

    • Nads

      Not if its done properly, i use wireless headphones only and all the time. Never have any latency even when using for vr!

    • Andrew Jakobs

      uhh, not for audio.. I’m already using a wireless headphone with my DK2, and it’s not even the best one (Creative Sound blaster Omega Tactic 3D), won’t go back to wired….