Damien Quintard, founder of SoundX, wears one of the vibrating backpacks that will be available for deaf or hard of hearing concertgoers at the Philharmonie de Paris. Photo by Bertrand Guay/AFP.
“Vibrating backpacks for deaf and hard of hearing people will be offered from the 2023-2024 season at the Philharmonie de Paris,” states an unsigned article on Tuesday’s (5/16) Agence France Presse (English translation at Teller Report). “The equipment, a connected backpack controlled by an app, picks up ambient sounds using artificial intelligence. It ‘identifies everything that happens in the audio spectrum’ and transcribes the sounds in the form of vibrations, said Damien Quintard, founder of SoundX…. These backpacks will be deployed next season to be operational [at] the Philharmonie in 2024-2025 … ‘Vibrating pack’ systems have already been used in several music events in recent years. But they only transcribe the bass [while] the solution proposed by SoundX would capture the musical frequency ‘up to 20,000 hertz,’ against 100 with current options…. The deputy director in charge of social responsibility at the Philharmonie de Paris, Sarah Koné, assured that the device would be free … No need for an individual phone to connect to the application … the Philharmonie controls vibrating backpacks using a single tablet…. Shows adapted to hearing disabilities will be offered by the Philharmonie, which already has alternatives for different disabilities.”
