QSound and Mitsubishi Team Up on Surround Sound Chips

QSound Labs and Mitsubishi Electric have struck a technology alliance to develop, manufacture and sell a new family of integrated circuits built on QSound’s QSurround 3D audio processing, aimed at consumer electronics makers worldwide.

The first chip drops QSound’s Matrix Decoder/Virtualizer (QMDV) into Mitsubishi’s tone-control circuitry and targets makers of stereo TVs plus portable and mini-component stereos. Samples are already out, and mass production is set for the third quarter of 1999. The pitch: QMDV virtualizes matrix surround-encoded stereo without needing a separate decoder chip. Feed it plain stereo and it applies QSound’s QXpander soundfield expansion instead; feed it a matrix surround signal and it automatically conjures a multi-speaker soundfield out of just two physical speakers. Surround from a pair of TV speakers is a claim I always want to hear with my own ears before I believe it, but cheaper 3D audio in more living rooms is good news either way.