What Is Immersive Sound?
What is Immersive Sound?
Immersive sound provides a natural, lifelike three-dimensional sound experience unlike anything heard before in traditional 2D surround solutions. The additional sensation of height in immersive audio together with the surrounds all around the audience, transports you into a more thrilling and deeper audio experience.
This revolution in audio technology immerses the listener by unlocking the ability to deliver sounds from in front, above and all around, creating a totally new emotional level of entertainment when watching movies, listening to music or playing games, giving you the feeling of actually “being there”.
Hear all the details just as you would in real life. Let yourself be immersed and enveloped in the lifelike sound of immersive sound.
Combined with stunning visuals, this 3D audio solution delivers the most complete and powerful entertainment for home theaters.
3D Audio Codecs
StormAudio supports all existing and future leading 3D sound formats, including Auro-3D®, Dolby Atmos®, DTS:X Pro™, IMAX Enhanced, MPEG-H and 360 Reality Audio.
Auro 3D
Auro-3D® an audio technology and format based on uncompressed audio and compatibility with existing standards and formats. The distinctive listening concept behind Auro-3D is the addition of a ‘height’ layer on top of traditional 2D surround layouts. It is the additional height layer with the ceiling channel that creates a sensation of sound enveloping the listener. The format supports speaker configurations from 9.1 to 13.1.
Dolby Atmos
Dolby® Atmos is based on the concept of object based audio technology, where any sound can exist as an independent object, to be placed and moved anywhere in your room, including overhead. Sounds will flow above and around you as they would in a real-world environment.
DTS:X and DTS:X Pro
DTS:X Pro™ is the next-generation audio codec from Xperi that leverages object-based audio to enable new audio experiences in immersion and interactivity. Offering a multi-dimensional audio experience in a very flexible way, DTS:X is compatible with all immersive sound speaker configurations.
MPEG-H
MPEG-H Audio is a new, next-generation audio technology providing more realism through sound from above as well as around the listener. With its unique personalization features, MPEG-H Audio offers viewers great flexibility to actively engage with the content and adapt it to their own preferences. The MPEG-H Audio system delivers enveloping immersive sound and allows consumers to choose between different audio presets or to adjust the dialogue volume.
Sony 360 Reality Audio
360 Reality Audio is a new immersive music experience that uses Sony‘s (object-based) 360 Spatial Sound technology. Individual sounds such as vocals, chorus, piano, guitar, bass and even the sounds of the live audience can be placed in a 360 spherical sound field with location data, giving artists and creators a way to express their creativity. Listeners can be immersed in a field of sound exactly as intended by artists and creators. 360 Reality Audio can be widely used in the music industry and licenses out the technologies for music streaming services, audio manufacturers and game developers.
Legacy content
For content not mixed natively in immersive formats, upmixing technologies can help to create immersive experiences for them too. Auro Technologies, Dolby and DTS have all developed upmixers that can process a fixed number of channels and playback the audio over a greater number of audio channels.
With the ability to decode numerous channels natively, encountering silent speakers during the playback of specific content is not unusual, given the variety of formats in the market and their recommended speaker placements. Although opting for silent speakers can be intentional, it can be disappointing not to utilize all speakers for an enhanced immersive experience. StormAudio engineers have addressed this issue by creating StormXT, which collaborates with existing immersive decoding and upmixing algorithms. It efficiently extracts pertinent audio signals from nearby speakers and redirects them to the silent speakers, overcoming the challenge and optimizing the overall audio experience.
Speaker Placement
StormAudio is very proud to have contributed its expertise to the RP22, a set of recommended guidelines for immersive audio system design, in collaboration with the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and CEDIA. This document aims to establish a specific set of performance criteria for home audio systems, reshaping the way we can anticipate system performance, and to propose guidelines to help define the speaker’s placement in any installation embracing multiple parameters and constraints and ensuring perfect compatibility with all existing codecs.
For the first time, system performance metrics are delineated into four specific levels, departing from the ambiguous categorizations such as “good, better, best” or “low-, middle-, high-” cost models. The new definitions go beyond serving the interests of integrators.
With RP22, manufacturers gain assurance that their products operate as intended, while customers gain a comprehensive understanding of the value they receive for their investment with certainty that any content will perform at its best and with respect to the artistic intent. The establishment of clear levels not only imposes accountability on integrators but also raises our industry to the pinnacle of professional standards.
How to choose an immersive audio processor?
An immersive audio processor is at the center of the system, connecting the source components, amplifiers and loudspeakers while managing decoding, processing and signal routing. Choosing the right processor therefore depends on more than the number of channels it can handle.
The speaker layout, number of listening positions and room configuration determine the processing capacity and connectivity you will need. A 7.4.4 layout already requires 15 channels, while a 9.4.6 system calls for 19. From a compact immersive system to a large multi-row home cinema, the processor should provide enough flexibility to accommodate the architecture of the installation.
The processing itself also matters. Support for immersive formats such as Dolby Atmos, DTS:X Pro, Auro-3D, MPEG-H, Sony 360 Reality Audio and IMAX Enhanced is only part of the equation. Advanced routing, bass management, upmixing and room calibration give the processor a much greater role in shaping the final result.
It is also important to consider how the system needs to be connected and controlled. The right combination of analog and digital inputs and outputs, audio networking, HDMI connectivity and control integration will depend on the equipment used throughout the installation.
Finally, the flexibility the installation may require over time can influence the choice of the processor. A scalable architecture and regular software updates can make it easier to adapt the system as requirements evolve.
StormAudio immersive audio processors — Elite, Core 16, Evo and Evo One — are built around these four principles.
