sonic is an experiment on the topic of screenless computers. what would our smart devices look like, and act like if they were not bound by the rectangular standard of the screen. sonic is a pair of headtracking headphones powered by a Raspberry Pi. the headtracking information is used to control a supercollider program that performs binaural processing. in other worrds the spatial positions of sound sources are decoupled from the listeners frame of reference. so to say the sounds stay in place as the user changes the orientation of their head. its like VR but for your ears not your eyes.
the device can also record stereo audio using the two microphones mounted on the two earcups. having microphones so close to where one's ears would be gives the sound a lot of presence. the componnts are mounted on a pair of headphones that i've had for around five years now and the whole assembly is modular, meaning that faulty components can be easily swapped out.
sonic uses twin i2s mems microphones( SPH0645) for audio recording and a accelerometer+gyroscope+magnetometer(LSM9DS1) ic for head-tracking.