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HTC has just launched Vive Focus 3, an amazing headset for the enterprise. This expensive device introduces a feature called “Audio Privacy” that can be very relevant for the future of VR porn. Let me explain to you why.
Audio is an important part of the VR porn experience
When talking about adult entertainment, we are most of the time focused on the visual experience that we are having: we talk about the characteristics of the body of the actors or actresses, we enjoy the sexual performances they are having in front of us, and so on. Almost no one ever discusses online the voices, the sounds, of a porn movie. Trust me: if I ask you who is the actress/actor with the voice that you like the most, do you know the answer? Most probably, no.
But audio actually is very important in the movie industry. Most movie experts state that sound is 50-70% of the whole movie experience: think about how a horror film would be much less scary without audio, and you have an example of why this saying is true. Yes, porn movies have a much lower budget than Hollywood blockbusters, but audio plays an important part in them as well.
If you watch a VR porn movie without audio, the experience looks less engaging, and you feel less present in the action. It looks like watching some girls getting naked in an aquarium. Audio is vital for the initial dialogue of a scene, giving you the setting, making you feel inside your part. Then it is exciting to hear the actors moaning, which can be a booster when you want to feel strong sexual emotions. And we don’t have to forget that many VR movies exploit the positive effects of ASMR, with the girls (or boys) that whisper some romantic sentences inside your ears, for an experience that so feels very intimate.
ASMR is a category of porn that is very appreciated (Image credit: VRSexperts)
You can still enjoy a VR adult movie without audio, but you lose a great part of the experience: it is like eating a good dish without salt.
The requirements of a good audio experience
Having understood why audio is so important for the VR adult industry, let’s now analyze how to have a perfect auditory experience from a VR user standpoint.
There are three main requirements for a good VR audio porn experience:
- It should be easily enjoyable: you shouldn’t have to mess with external hardware or entangled cables to hear the audio.
- The audio must be of high quality: you want to be immersed in your virtual situation, feeling it as if it was real.
- It should guarantee the user’s privacy: you don’t want people around you to realize that you are watching porn and you are not doing that “university research” you told them you were doing.
The Vive Focus 3 is the first product that aims at offering all of three together, even if it still fails a bit with the third one. Let’s discover why.
Vive Focus 3 provides audio of unprecedented quality for a standalone headset (Image Credit: HTC Vive)
1. The Vive Focus 3 has integrated audio
The Vive Focus 3 offers integrated speakers, like all the most modern headsets. Recently all the most famous VR headsets feature little speakers on the headband so that you can enjoy the audio of your experience without having to mess with external headphones.
External headphones are still possible to use, but they have the problem that every time you take your headset on and off, you also have to do that with the headphones. And if the headset is tethered, the cables of the headphones and the headset often get entangled. And when you have just had your happy ending, you for sure don’t want to have to deal with complicated headset removal operations. You want to use one hand (you know why) to remove everything instantly. That’s why integrated speakers are fundamental.
2. The Vive Focus 3 has high-quality speakers
HTC has done a great job in integrating high-quality speakers in its latest headset. While competitors like Oculus Quest or Pico Neo have good speakers with not supreme performance, Vive Focus 3 introduces speakers that provide truly immersive audio.
The sounds that come from the device feel real, feel rich, feel immersive. You can feel all their nuances, and also, you have the sensation that the audio is truly coming from around you. This means that when you are with three virtual girls, you truly feel they are around you, speaking and moaning together with you.
Probably the Valve Index still has an edge for what concerns audio quality, but the Focus 3 comes close to it and without the need to have a cable and a nearby computer. You can take the Focus 3 everywhere with you to enjoy your kinkiest fantasies.
With good speakers on your headset, you can truly feel together with this sexy girl playing the guitar without underpants (Image credit: SexBabesVR)
3. The Vive Focus 3 offers “Audio Privacy”
Here we come to the true innovation that HTC is offering. When you enjoy porn on your Oculus Quest, Valve Index, or whatever else device, the integrated speakers do their job… but the people around you can also hear it. Your “university research” excuse for donning a headset would be busted immediately. Yes, you could wear a pair of headphones to solve the issue, but at this point, we return to problem n.1 of having to mess with external headphones and a VR headset both on your head.
To solve all of this, HTC has created “Audio Privacy.” It is a software feature that can be activated inside the headset system menu and aims to give you full privacy of your audio experience even if you are not wearing external headphones. It allows you to listen to the audio of your VR experience, but simultaneously the people around you hear nothing.
It sounds like magic, but actually, it’s just plain physics (nerd alert!). The system has an internal speaker that sends to your ear the audio wave of the VR experience you are enjoying and at the same time has an external speaker that emits the exact opposite of that audio wave to the external world. This means that the ear of an external person in the same room receives both the audio wave of your experience and its opposite audio wave, and the sum of the two is zero, which is pure silence. So no one else can hear what you’re hearing. No moaning abandons your headset!
Lateral view of the Focus 3. You can see the external speaker that is used for the “Audio Privacy” feature (Image Credit: HTC Vive)
Does it work?
As I told you before, this doesn’t work perfectly. According to reviewers, the “Audio Privacy” feature does a good job in reducing the volume and the quality of the audio that people around you can hear. However, they can still somewhat hear what you are listening to. So it is not good for porn yet… unless, around you, there is just your granny that never understands you when you talk.
Furthermore, reviewers also highlight that the audio quality for the user also degrades a bit when using this functionality.
“Audio Privacy” is the future of VR porn
But this is just the first headset implementing this feature, and we hope that it will be improved over time. If many more vendors adopt the “Audio Privacy” feature, this technology could be made perfect in the next years, and in the end, we will be able to enjoy our immersive porn movies in full comfort, without having to care about being exposed to the people around us.
The only problem is: who will work in the office when you know that you can watch porn for 8 hours a day without no one else noticing it? Maybe this innovation is not good for the economy…
I will stick with headphones for now, but this sounds promising.
It’s a nice touch.