Tuesday, 15 June 2021

The multisensory technology will revolutionise cinema, theatre, concerts, gaming, meditation and therapy, and offer an affordable home cinema to everyone


London, UK — 15th June 2021 – For over 100 years, we've only used our eyes and ears to watch movies and listen to music, but FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ creates a unique, holistic, immersive listening experience that you can feel as well as hear. It combines full-range high-quality audio with gentle physical sound wave vibration, to add the sensation of touch to any listening experience, be it music, games, television, streaming, meditation, movies, VR or any other sound content. Originally designed and engineered in Finland to help autistic children, the technology solves problems and adds value in many industries.
Our sense of touch is amazingly sensitive to sound and has been consistently underused in high-quality audio, until now. FLEXOUND aims to make audio a whole-body experience that enhances quality of life. Unlike loudspeakers that vibrate sound into the air, FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ radiates the vibration through foam, providing a soft, near-field listening experience. Patented FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ technology can be embedded into seats, cushions and anything that is soft and in contact with the body.
FLEXOUND Pulse™ seat, for example, is the world’s first fully loudspeaker-free cinema concept that transforms any space – small or large – into a superior, immersive soundscape and multisensory cinema. Stores, malls, auditoriums, museums, live theatres and concert arenas can all become fully functioning cinemas or gaming stations without any external loudspeakers. At home, you can use it as your office meeting audio instead of loudspeakers, as a gaming station, for sound massage or to enjoy a premium cinema experience from the comfort of your living room.

With FLEXOUND Pulse™, You Can Sit Inside the Sound
It creates a personal soundsphere and a deeper focus and immersion into music, stories, relaxation or gaming. The multisensory experience of FLEXOUND Pulse™ also enhances the emotions created by the content, enriching art and making it accessible to more people, such as the hearing impaired.
Previously, the sound frequencies felt in a cinema would mostly be the thump of the high-powered subwoofers firing sub-bass at you. With FLEXOUND Pulse™ you are able to literally feel frequencies up to 500 hertz with your body, and even up to 1,000 hertz with your hands and skin. Because FLEXOUND Pulse™ does not rely on far field listening or filling a room with decibels like traditional loudspeakers, sound leakage from room to room is considerably less.

FLEXOUND Pulse™ provides equal sound quality and the sensation of touch for every person, in every seat. By listening through your skin as well as your ears, you don’t need as many decibels to achieve clarity of speech, and dramatic scores and sound effects won’t ever drown out dialogue, even during the most chaotic action movie sequences.



Miia Karhu, a second-generation cinema owner in Finland and a leading voice in the cinema community, recently updated the sound systems in her cinemas, but now wishes that FLEXOUND Augmented Audio had come to her first. “I was really surprised by the quality of the surround sound,” she said. “If I hadn’t been told that the sound was coming only from the FLEXOUND Pulse™ chair, I wouldn’t have known – the sound seemed to come from everywhere” Karhu explained after testing the concept.

Riku Jaro, a sound engineer with 30 years of professional expertise in sound design, installation and optimisation, said, “I'm not an outsider watching the screen anymore. I'm inside the movie because the sound is all around me… it's a full-body experience.”

“I can see the FLEXOUND Pulse™ being adopted across the world by audiences, because of the deep, immersive experience that it will give them,” continued Jaro. “FLEXOUND Pulse™ makes every chair the ‘golden chair’ [in the cinema], because it delivers the ideal sound equally to every listener.”

During market research organised in May, FLEXOUND Pulse™ left a lasting impression on all previewers, with 91% saying that they would recommend the experience to others, 77% reporting that they had enjoyed the new sound experience a lot, and 89% saying that they want FLEXOUND Pulse™ in their local cinemas.

“I definitely want to have a FLEXOUND Pulse™ even in my man cave,” Jaro added. “No one can disturb you and you get perfect sound in your own space, whether you are watching football or enjoying live music.”


The Applications are Endless
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ technology has incredible potential in terms of revolutionising the cinematic, home entertainment, and wellness industries, and others:

• FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ is lightweight, compact and energy efficient. It creates a ‘sound bubble’ effect around the user and ensures minimal sound leakage. It is your entertainment and music centre, gaming station, sound massager, and your affordable home cinema.

· FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ enables car manufacturers to replace or reduce speakers, add safety by physical driver feedback, personalise sound zones on seats, add emotion to EVs by making them sound and feel like traditional cars, and provides health and wellness benefits in cars.

· The sense of touch and tactile perception of vibration improves sound clarity and accessibility for the hearing impaired, or in noisy conditions.

· The vibro-acoustic experience provides pain relief and eases anxiety. Therapists are using FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ for children and adults with autism and development disability, people with chronic pain, rehabilitation of memory disorders, neurological and sleeping disorders, depression, and speech therapy.


“You can use more than one FLEXOUND boosted device in a living room. I can be on my sofa watching Grey’s Anatomy while my daughter is in the armchair listening to hip-hop, and we don’t disturb one another,” says Mervi Heinaro, CEO of FLEXOUND.


Features of FLEXOUND Pulse™ concept seat:

• Distraction free and safe personal sound zone.
• Deep focus and immersion into the story.
• High quality sound and integrated natural sound vibration.
• First fully loudspeaker-free cinema concept.
• Premium cinema experience in any premises.
• Minimal sound leakage outside the theatre.
• Supports all existing sound content.



Availability

FLEXOUND Pulse™ cinema seat concept is ready for pre-orders from cinemas, and for licencing to furniture and seating manufacturers.

FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ will enhance your customer experience by embedding the patented FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ technology into furniture, consumer devices, toys, car or theatre seating — or wherever personal high-quality audio and feel of sound adds value. The specialist team will co-create the product to match the needs of any brand.


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About FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™, founded in 2015, is a Finland-based deep tech ingredient brand for licensing.
The need to be touched physically is profound in human beings. FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ makes audio a whole-body experience that enhances quality of life. Its mission is to make sound and entertainment accessible for everyone regardless of barriers of culture, language or physical abilities.
FLEXOUND holds multiple international patents to its augmented audio that helps its B2B customers integrate the patented FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ technology as a branded ingredient into car, airplane or cinema seats, furniture, gaming chairs, cushions and more, adding high value and differentiation. See more at www.flexound.com.

Media Contacts
Zaboura Consultancy
flexound@zaboura.com
+44 (0)203 588 0304
Business Enquiries
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio
Info@flexound.com
+358 10 5671 770