Stages LLC Announces Launch of Kickstarter Campaign for Groundbreaking Augmented Listening Devices

Princeton, NJ, December 21, 2016 (Newswire.com) - ​​After garnering national media attention for introducing a groundbreaking new way for headphone listeners to communicate with others and still hear what they want in a full 360 degrees—while enjoying and staying immersed in their music, VR or other listening experience—Stages LLC has announced that they will be launching their Kickstarter campaign alongside their debut in the Eureka Park Marketplace at CES 2017 in Las Vegas.

“We are incredibly excited to offer the Stages Hero^TM and Sidekick^TM on the Kickstarter platform, as it allows us to have an immediate and direct connection with all of the people we know have been looking for a better listening experience,” said Joel Sackett, Vice President of Product, Marketing & Software Engineering. “By leveraging the power of crowdfunding, we’re able to offer our products to an extremely broad market much sooner than we would be able to through any other channel. Just as we look forward to interacting with the people at Eureka Park who will be experiencing all of these groundbreaking technologies that venue is known for introducing, crowdfunding will enable us to have that same sort of interaction with a much larger universe of people, no matter where they are. We want people to be invested in following our story as it unfolds—getting their feedback and reactions to what we have created is an important part of the process.”

Stages’ Kickstarter campaign will kick-off right around CES 2017, which runs from January 5th - 8th, and Stages will be exhibiting in the Eureka Park marketplace, renowned for being a hub of innovative product launches at past CES events. Stages will be located in Sands, Hall G booth #51458 and will have both of their products on-hand and ready to demonstrate.

"To truly grasp the benefit of the Stages platform, you need only think of any loud environment where you try to focus on someone or something you want to hear coming from a particular direction. Sound has no discretion, so it comes at you from everywhere, and if it isn’t what or who you want to hear, it is just noise—purely a distraction,” said Benjamin Benattar, Stages’ co-founder and CEO. "On the other hand, imagine if you could just focus on that slice of sound that you want to hear. With Stages, your ability to focus on what you want to hear, rather than fending off what you don’t, just got a whole lot easier. We look forward to people stopping by for a demo to hear what our products can do.”

“We are entering a period of transition in the audio and hearing industries,” said Benattar, “and people will have amazing new opportunities that they haven’t had before.  We are excited about what Stages’ technology will allow people to experience, as the ability to use a simple microphone or two to focus like a headlight on whatever may be directly in front of you is one option, but people don’t live their lives in a straight line, and they don’t always want to hear that way either, so our goal has been to open-up the entire world of sound around you, and let as many people as possible choose when and how to let it in.”

Earlier in December, Stages introduced two revolutionary augmented listening products intended to combine the enhanced listening experience of integrated high quality DAC and headphone amplifiers, with an unprecedented degree of ambient sound personalization, all while making that technology available to as broad a market as possible at an attractive cost.

­­The Hero™ is an advanced audiophile-quality, over-the-ear noise canceling pair of headphones that can operate either wired or wirelessly. The Sidekick™ is a rechargeable desktop product that offers the same sound personalization functionality as the Hero, but allows the use of any preferred wired or wireless headphones, earbuds or hearable you already own.

Both products contain Stages’ patented technology. Ambient+™ and Selective Sound™ combine multiple proprietary digital signal and speech-processing algorithms, with Stages' Audio Processing System (APS)™, a custom-designed circular MEMS microphone array and integrated electronics in a platform that constantly scans a full 360-degree soundscape in real-time. This allows Stages' technology to narrowly identify and focus on desired incoming voices and sounds based on user preferences while drastically reducing undesired sounds in the process.

About Stages

Founded in 2013 in New Jersey, Stages LLC is on a mission to change the way people hear the world around them, while providing an unparalleled, high-resolution listening experience. The Stages team comprises over a dozen seasoned audiophiles and technology experts alike, with professional backgrounds ranging from hardware, software, DSP and embedded software engineering and design to music production and performance, digital sound processing, user experience design and machine learning.

Media Contact:
​Joel Sackett
[email protected]
609-434-8084

Source: Stages LLC