Signal Processing Supports a New Wave of Audio Research: Spatial and Immersive Audio Mimics Real-World Sound Environments [Special Reports]

In an era of ubiquitous video, audio is often relegated to a secondary role. Yet electronic audio in all of its various forms is now staging a strong comeback as listeners, increasingly dissatisfied with the output of highly compressed audio files and streams, seek higher sound quality on all types of fixed and mobile platforms. Signal processing is largely responsible for taking audio in all of its forms to new levels of quality. On the cutting edge of audio research is spatial audio, or ambisonics, a technique that takes a dimensional approach to sound, mimicking the way people hear in real life. By channeling the characteristics of sound as it travels through space and time, ambisonics envelops listeners inside a threedimensional (3-D) audio sphere that makes recorded music sound startlingly natural in whatever setting it’s used.