The TigerFox® Immerse 360® was perfected and completed with the grateful assistance of many!
I threw-away the book that’s been the audio bible for the last 90 years! It was scary at first – until it led to an amazing discovery. That of using pure acoustics instead of electronics to deliver audio so pure that it had never been experienced before.
I believe this patented scientific discovery was helped by my background in photonics (the physical science of light waves), my love for high-performance sound, my 40 year audiophile experience, and my need to try to improve something already excellent but which was always outside of my limited budget.
My goal soon developed into taking what had always been an extremely difficult, confusing, and prohibitively expensive audio experience and transforming it into a simple, stress-free and affordable experience. One that’s rare, valuable, and highly memorable – but one that had always been highly-restricted throughout audio history to only a fortunate and wealthy few.
The result is the TigerFox® pure acoustic Immerse 360®.
It provides you with a dimensional level of personal audio experience with your music, video games and movies that you’ve never been able to experience before. One that will forever change your perception of realism, sound imaging and immersion.
This could not have happened without the excellent and most grateful assistance of many others over the last 10 years.
They helped develop the final TigerFox Immerse 360 product and the content in this website that explains how and why it works so amazingly. They struggled with me to bring this striking, pure audio experience to you today.
Details on many of these wonderful individuals are included below.
I am most grateful to these folks and honored to work with them.
Rick O’Polka, TigerFox Founder
Mark Mueller
My contribution to the TigerFox invention was an analysis of its elliptical sound reflection properties for the patent application.
I have a Masters Degree in Space Science and Engineering; yes it is rocket science. I worked on the Apollo moon landing project.
I have been a downhill ski racer for 60 years. I have recently started a business selling renewable energy credits to a local nonprofit. I am renting their roof for the installation of a 35 kW solar system.
Bailey Owens
My area of expertise as part of the TigerFox team deals with the branding, marketing, and communication strategy. I have been with the team for a little over three years now and contribute by initiating, editing and developing content and marketing ideas for almost every part of the company.
What I love most about TigerFox is the passion that the team has for enjoying amazing sound. When I first heard the Immerse 360, I knew I had stumbled across a rare opportunity to be part of something great. As a music enthusiast, I think that what the Immerse 360 has to offer is striking.
It’s fun to watch my friends’ and family’s faces the first time they experience the Immerse 360. I know exactly what they are feeling, because before the experience, there is nothing else that really compares. A lot of perseverance has gone not only into the creation of the sound pod, but the entire user experience.
Providing immaculate sound in extremely complex. We’ve done our best to present the rare discovery that is the Immerse 360 – how it works and why it will change your listening experience forever. As we move forward, I am excited to see more and more people discover the magic of pure acoustics.
Dawn McClure O’Polka
I like to believe I was an essential and primary asset to my husband, Rick, as he developed TigerFox. I was there from the initial stages. My focus was content and product development, a very difficult and fluid stage of a start-up company. I was able to help develop the initial product description, with strategic planning, preparing the initial patent and coordinating consumer feedback. Branding, including developing and building the Aurora Health Care brand, is my professional area of expertise so I was happy to help.
I joined Rick at the first audio trade show where an early TigerFox prototype was market tested and evaluated for the audiophile and music enthusiast market. I also worked with Rick to identify and expend the TigerFox market to include the gaming industry as its sound enhancement benefits are so striking and amazing in revealing the smallest detail
I am a bit of an adventurer, traveling near and far. Two of my favorite things are my car and my GPS as they give me the freedom I need to start an adventure at any time. I am blessed with an amazing family and friends. I love to take long walks outdoors. Everyday is a gift to me. Walking allows me to enjoy discovering new things that connect me with our creator. Good books, relationships, and beautiful music, wild birds, and nature’s sounds and smells bring me the greatest joy.
David Schuttenhelm
I’ve used my diverse skills in Graphic Design, Web Development, and Animation to contribute to every aspect of this website.
I spent 8 years in educational game design and volunteer as a coach for a non-profit that provides skill development in entertainment technology arts.
I also produce courses in animation software for BloopAnimation.com.
Drew Cady
I own Seismic Island Labs, Spatial Audio and I am a Format Consultant.
My help and contribution to Rick and TigerFox were: Using my knowledge of production methods in video games, movies and music, I evaluated how streaming media, CD, DVD and Blu ray would translate into the TigerFox system. Having much experience in creating content, I offered a unique perspective on how TigerFox can be used in a professional environment.
I specialize in immersive sound. It has always been an interest of mine. In my professional career I have strived to produce content that is detailed and believable through the use of media types such as mono, stereo, binaural, Ambisonic, 5.1, 7.1, 8.2.4 and others. One of my most profound immersive experiences was to record an album in a decommissioned cistern with all of it’s lush reverb. For the last two decades I have recorded and mixed the Evergreen Philharmonic Orchestra.
Dave Zachman
My main contribution to TigerFox and Rick is sales and marketing as a career sales manager with particular interest in startups – focused on fundamentals of ‘Who is my customer’.
My side interest is I love mentoring and teaching social entrepreneurship at Cardinal Stritch and entrepreneurial sales at M-WERC here in Milwaukee. My special interest is sales analytics, sales playbooks and customer relationship management.
Glenn Allen
I consulted with Rick on social-proof marketing and produced video marketing assets for the TigerFox product.
I am a multi-instrumental musician and songwriter, former sound engineer, and the self-proclaimed “world’s okay-est dad” to three young children.
My Marketing and Business consulting and coaching has allowed me to work with Emmy Award Musicians, best-selling authors, and world-class artists and entrepreneurs, not the least of which is inventor, Rick O’Polka and his incredible Tiger Fox 360.
Kenneth (Ken) Reed
Rick and I have had many discussions about his new product and the development of a company to produce and market the TigerFox product(s).
The conversations of late have been on the manufacturing specifications and the need for quality spec’s for his vendors in order to develop a cost that would allow him to successfully enter the marketplace. However, I believe we covered every topic known to a small start-up company like Rick’s.
It was really fun for me to see how he has grown with this new company!
Rick has been one of the most enjoyable clients. He has thought of and discussed almost every topic I can think about! The last was one of the most interesting maybe, that was working and developing excellent vendors for the long term.
Sarah Turbo (Busch)
I helped develop the TigerFox system for attaching the binding to the product by sewing. I’ve been sewing for 17 years, 8 years professionally.
I have a passion for fiber arts and fashion in both my career and hobbies. My most recent hobbies are knitting, gardening and rollerskating, but pre-pandemic I was a traveller and purveyor of nightlife.
I’m the owner of Cinch Tailoring Company, a garment alterations business at 906 E Center St. Milwaukee. You can find my business on instagram @CinchTailoring. I also design clothing/accessories and trade vintage clothing. You can find me on Etsy @SarahBelleTurbo.
The problems we set out to fix . . .
All previous audio technologies suffer from serious sound reproduction problems.
1) Sound degrading Crosstalk
When listening to any speakers in any room, the little understood but problem of Crosstalk seriously damages the sound before it’s even heard. In the real world, each individual sound comes from its own specific 360-degree location in the surrounding environment.
When using two or more loudspeakers, however, our ears and brain are not able to sort out the contradicting directional, distance and positional information arriving from speakers’ locations.
The result is all sounds are restricted to being heard only from the general location of the speakers, instead of each sound being heard coming from its true original 360-degree location.
2) 98% of sound from any speaker doesn’t directly reach the listener
The “cone” distribution pattern of sound coming from a speaker is disbursed around a room in all locations, but only a very small portion (about 2%) actually travels directly from speaker to the listener’s ears. The delay of sound hitting the opposite ear also causes a well-documented sound delay that further damages the sound that the brain hears.
3) Speaker-Room Interaction
The vast majority of sound from a speaker that doesn’t go directly to the listener’s ears is either totally lost by absorption or is randomly reflected off of walls and other objects in the surrounding listening room environment.
The reflected sound then reaches the listener from different room locations and with different sound delay, volume and frequency levels to then significantly conflict with the “pure” sound heard directly from the speakers.
4) Installing “surround sound” systems is a costly and complex job
HIgh-end surround sound systems, including immersive audio require costly, time consuming and confusing setups often with many speakers needing to be precisely distanced apart and around the listener in a dedicated listening space. These systems also require extensive wiring, added boxes and the setting up of complex electronics.
Some audiophiles go as far as building $100,000+ listening rooms to get the cleanest possible sound. Even then, however, the sound they hear has been damaged before they hear it because of the uncontrolled sound reproduction problems described above.
5) The realism gap between headphone sound and loudspeaker sound
Listening to sound through headphones or from loudspeakers each have their own set of strengths and limitations for realistically reproducing sound. Listeners have always been forced to choose one set of drawbacks or the other . . . until now.
The TigerFox Immerse 360 instantly solves ALL of these problems – simply, easily, and affordably.
7 Years in the making
Developing and delivering ONE simple and stress-free solution to complex problems, especially many problems at once, is the essence of quality innovation and design.
To radically transform the promising new pure acoustic discovery – to make it into a simple-to-use and affordable design that delivers flawless sound with the trouble-free operation – over 7 years of testing and development produced 624 different versions.
624 Different Versions Tested
To refine these 623 different versions into ONE simple, user-friendly design :
- 187 separate components were made and performance tested.
- 26 pairs of loudspeakers, 13 headphones and 7 different types, quality levels and costs of surround sound setups were compatibility performance tested.
- 32 different acoustic materials were shaped, tested and acoustically compared.
- Resonite, our final acoustic material, was chosen and performance upgraded.
- The different technologies of the historically-proven musical instrument soundboard and the high-performance double-ellipse acoustic design of the TigerFox Immerse 360 were intricately combined into the final working geometry of the Immerse 360.(This revolutionary new patented combination is brought together for the first time in audio history).
- The different structures were performance tested for structural durability, demographic diversity, user-friendliness, complexity-free-design and extended life.
- A wide variation of conventional and specialized digital and analog music, movie, video game and over-the-air audio and A/V content and sources were comparatively tested.
- The final Immerse 360 product was sustainably designed from-the-ground-up to use zero electricity. And the final product is produced with over 50% of its content comprised of 100% recycled material.
Some of the different versions tested
Over these many years of testing and development . . .
- The consumer price of the final design (the Immerse 360) was remarkably reduced by 530% to $479.
- The number of parts was decreased from 42 to 2.
- Resonite, our chosen final acoustic material, was able to be upgraded to deliver its present ultra-high acoustic results.
- The structural size and shape of the acoustic soundboard module was streamlined into a simple, lightweight design that pops-up in under 3 minutes and is easily movable to other locations.
- The final product has an extraordinary long performance life and durability. For example:
- The design has no electronic or moving parts to fail, wear out, or lose performance over time.
- It has no operational costs, no updates ever needed, and it has no obsolescence, for an extended long trouble-free performance life.
- To guarantee the Immerse 360’s extended structural durability, the product’s structural “living hinge” design was forcefully stress tested using over 10,000 vigorous back-and-forth full bends.
- The Immerse 360 design retains full structural integrity even after 10,000 full back-and-forth bends.
- Its “hinge-like” bending performance and structural integrity actually improves with each bending operation!
- The completed Immerse 360 design allows for use with pre-owned speakers, media and audio sources of choice, with no need to update, upgrade or purchase anything new (full immediate compatibility backward, forward, and across-the-board).
- The quality level of realism, immersion and the exact positioning of sounds increased to the ultra-high-performance level for all tested categories of music, video games and movies.
- The final Immerse 360 product is sustainably designed from-the-ground-up to use zero electricity and is responsibly produced with over 50% of the product composed of 100% recycled materials.
The Result — The TigerFox® Immerse 360®
The Immerse 360’s use of pure acoustics removes serious sound reproduction problems that the audio industry has never been able to solve before.
The result delivers true three-dimensional immersive full-surround audio to virtually all your music, video games and movies.
This automatically upgrades your media experiences above the level of other audio systems in:
- 3D sound quality.
- Live sound realism.
- Exact positioning of individual sounds.
- Authentic full-hemisphere immersion.
And it does this simply, with guaranteed results, and with surprising affordability.
We at TigerFox are extremely proud of this exceptional high-value across-the-board Immerse 360® accomplishment!
And we are thrilled that we can make this dramatic level of upgrade available from this one product for virtually all your music, video games and movies.
Please support our start-up company and new product!
As we are just starting, please help us get the word out by passing along our website to 20 of your best friends – especially if they are competitive first-person video gamers, music lovers or serious movie enthusiasts!
Let them know about our new TigerFox company and fully-developed Immerse 360 product and ask them to check us out and pass along our start-up information.
Thank you!
Here is our link: TigerFox360.com