Spatial and immersive sound is a hot topic right now, and also an area you have a personal interest in, for those who are unsure, what is the difference between Surround Sound and Immersive Audio?
Immersive Audio appears to be the new multi-dimensional approach to audio storytelling that immerses listeners in an expanded sonic field that goes beyond traditional surround sound. The concept of Immersive sound encapsulates the idea of sounds that are emanating beyond a stereo system. It incorporates binaural, ambisonic as well as 5.1 and 7.1.4 surround sound. Whereas stereo has a 60-degree soundfield and Binaural a 180-degree soundfield, 5.1 surround sound covers a 360 soundfield but uses three of the five speaker configuration to cover a 60 degrees soundfield with only two remaining back speakers to cover the remaining 300 degrees. This does not give much of an opportunity to suggest exactly where the sounds / music are positioned and emanate from. However, 7.1 surround sound configurations include two extra speakers to help suggest 3D sound via ‘localization‘ (listener’s ability to determine where a sound is coming from). Dolby atmos, RD3D and DDTX (Object based sound) are leading exponents of this precision sound ‘localization ‘. Dolby atmos has 128 channels to position ‘sound beds’ (stereo, 5.1 and 7.1) alongside sound objects.