Sven_Palvig
Hi-Fi freak
"Immersive Sound Immersive Sound is often simply translated as ‘Surround Sound with Height’. Although technically correct, it should be noted that there is much more to it. Surround Sound formats are in practice only 2-dimensional, positioned in the horizontal plane around the listener and allowing sound to be produced from left to right and from front to back. Immersive Sound formats thus add the third dimension, allowing sound to be also produced from top to bottom.
Auro-3D® was the first format capable of reproducing a 3D space, with a complete end-toend solution for all markets,. The added experience brought by the addition of this third dimension can be much closer to what is experienced in real life and is the result of the combination of a number of elements. The most obvious elements is that sounds we expect to come from above now also do so (e.g. bird in a tree, airplane flying over…). However, perhaps less intuitively understandable, but nevertheless more important, is that an Immersive Sound system can also capture and reproduce the many ‘3D reflections’ of those sounds, building a natural-sounding sound field as we experience it in real-life. The majority of real-life sound consists of 3D reflections that are crucial for our brain to analyse the sound field. Many agree that ‘timbre’ or ‘tone color’ is the dominant parameter in the reproduction of natural sound and that those reflections are a crucial contributor for this. The speaker layouts as defined in the Auro-3D® format, are capable of reproducing those 3D reflections, creating “a coherent, vertical stereo field around the listener”, which allows for more depth, transparency and definition of the source localizations.
The method to reproduce the sounds in this 3-dimensional environment can be technically very different: channel-based, such as the original Auro-3D formats, object-based, such as Dolby Atmos, or DTS:X and the upcoming AuroMax format in Cinema, or even scenebased, using Ambisonics, one of the techniques used in MPEG-H (which also provides channel- and object-based audio delivery). It is clear that the final experience counts, not what technique was used to achieve this experience (contrary to what a lot of marketing would like you to believe).
All methods are usable to reproduce the individual sound sources in the 3D environment. It is claimed that object-based systems are best positioned to fulfil this tasks, thanks to their independency of the final reproduction system. This might be true to some extent, but depending on the installed speaker system. However, when playing back the same sound scene on the same speaker system, very little difference will be observed between the different systems, if any at all. However, with a carefully chosen speaker layout, a channel-based system is more suited to capture and reproduce the crucial information that makes up the complete natural sound field, including information about the original recording environment (room), size and distance of the sources and many more elements. This is why all object-based audio systems also include a channel-based component, often referred to as the ‘bed’, carrying this crucial information, next to the objects which often only carry the direct sound of the elements (often as mono-objects). Dolby Atmos home has a 7.1 surround sound bed (2D) while Auro-3D® is the only Immersive Sound format on the market that can reproduce a true 3D space with channel-based (beds) audio only, providing a consistent experience on all Auro-3D playback systems everywhere. "
Auro-3D® was the first format capable of reproducing a 3D space, with a complete end-toend solution for all markets,. The added experience brought by the addition of this third dimension can be much closer to what is experienced in real life and is the result of the combination of a number of elements. The most obvious elements is that sounds we expect to come from above now also do so (e.g. bird in a tree, airplane flying over…). However, perhaps less intuitively understandable, but nevertheless more important, is that an Immersive Sound system can also capture and reproduce the many ‘3D reflections’ of those sounds, building a natural-sounding sound field as we experience it in real-life. The majority of real-life sound consists of 3D reflections that are crucial for our brain to analyse the sound field. Many agree that ‘timbre’ or ‘tone color’ is the dominant parameter in the reproduction of natural sound and that those reflections are a crucial contributor for this. The speaker layouts as defined in the Auro-3D® format, are capable of reproducing those 3D reflections, creating “a coherent, vertical stereo field around the listener”, which allows for more depth, transparency and definition of the source localizations.
The method to reproduce the sounds in this 3-dimensional environment can be technically very different: channel-based, such as the original Auro-3D formats, object-based, such as Dolby Atmos, or DTS:X and the upcoming AuroMax format in Cinema, or even scenebased, using Ambisonics, one of the techniques used in MPEG-H (which also provides channel- and object-based audio delivery). It is clear that the final experience counts, not what technique was used to achieve this experience (contrary to what a lot of marketing would like you to believe).
All methods are usable to reproduce the individual sound sources in the 3D environment. It is claimed that object-based systems are best positioned to fulfil this tasks, thanks to their independency of the final reproduction system. This might be true to some extent, but depending on the installed speaker system. However, when playing back the same sound scene on the same speaker system, very little difference will be observed between the different systems, if any at all. However, with a carefully chosen speaker layout, a channel-based system is more suited to capture and reproduce the crucial information that makes up the complete natural sound field, including information about the original recording environment (room), size and distance of the sources and many more elements. This is why all object-based audio systems also include a channel-based component, often referred to as the ‘bed’, carrying this crucial information, next to the objects which often only carry the direct sound of the elements (often as mono-objects). Dolby Atmos home has a 7.1 surround sound bed (2D) while Auro-3D® is the only Immersive Sound format on the market that can reproduce a true 3D space with channel-based (beds) audio only, providing a consistent experience on all Auro-3D playback systems everywhere. "