Let’s say that the “immersive audio” is a way of reproducing sound in such a way that the listener has the perceptionthatthe audio reaches their ears in all directions and axes, not only from the front (which would be a mono or stereo format) and from around (“earswould be a mono or stereo format) and from around (“wouldreo) and from around (“reo), that is, from any point on a circular plane that imaginarily surrounds the person listening, but also in height, above and perhaps below, from any virtual point on a sphere in which the listener is“surround“), that is, from any point on a circular plane that imaginarily surrounds the person listening, but alsoalson in height, above and perhaps below, from any virtual point on a sphere in which the listener isis immersed in its center.
We talk about listener, ears, person, but, in addition to listening to something that is reproduced, we can also talk about capture, of a microphone or system of microphones that capture the three-dimensional spatiality of the sound to then be reproduced with an appropriate system for one format or another. In audio capture and balance there is a global sound reference that is Morten Lindberg, and listening to his music (in a similar way to how he produces it) justifies in itself the answer to the question of this article and gives a new perspective to the auditory, vital and emotional experience of any person.
The way in which we go from the captureón of that three-dimensional sound to its reproductionón, and the processes that it entails, is what is relatedón to the immersive audio format on which we make that translationón of what happens at a given moment in a place, or of what is created virtually, and then reproduced. Production vs reproduction.
Those formats can be anything: Ambisonics, Auro 3D, Sony 360 or of course the most dominant and widespread Dolby Atmos, among others, in the year 2025; but in the future it could be any other new technology that appears.
What these formats will allow to a greater or lesser extent is to give the person who listens the sensation that the sound comes from everywhere, surrounding them, that what is heard is wider (spatially), that it has greater definition, and as a consequence, that the hearing process they experience is more attractive and pleasant.
A curious way to perceive that sonic grandeur is to reproduce a list of songs that combines themes encoded for example in Dolby Atmos with others in stereo, especially if they are known themes, classics that are part of our vital musical experience. When immersive audio is compared with stereo, a vital companion of our musical memory, it becomes like the sound that comes out of a mono battery-powered radio, evocative but small and lacking definition.
Each immersive format has certain characteristics regarding how many radiating elements it must have and where they should be positioned in the space to correctly produce, according to the chosen format, the immersive audio material that you want to create. The reproduction should be equivalent. If we produce music in Dolby Atmos using a 7.1.4 monitoring system (seven monitors at ear height surrounding us, an LFE channel for bass effects, and four monitors in height above our heads), to reproduce the created material, the person listening should be centered in a similar sound system.
This is where the question contrary to the title of this article comes in: ¿por qué no usar audio inmersivo? And the reasons are both technical and economic. An immersive audio system equivalent to the one used to produce the content is complex, probably involves around a dozen elements that radiate sound, all of them with their corresponding cables, a system that decodes the format, and a sound source encoded in the immersive format. This, at home, is equivalent, for example, to an account on a streaming platform that contains music in Dolby Atmos or Sony 360, an element that decodes and reproduces it (a Smart TV, a phone compatible with the format, an Apple TV, for example) and an AV processor that receives that signal, understands it and sends it discreetly to at least a dozen radiating elements. It discourages anyone who is not an audio expert. For me, on the contrary, it was a challenge and an excellent investment since it is technology that depreciates very little over time (unlike, for example, a vehicle, or a SmartPhone).
But, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that in reality, you only need the platform account, a phone compatible with, for example, Dolby Atmos, and headphones connected via Bluetooth to that phone and that are compatible with that immersive audio format. Most likely anyone reading this article already has all of that. The bad thing is that the sound experience is incomplete (for psychoacoustic reasons that are not the purpose of this article), or at least, it is not as impressive an experience as it would be reproducing with a discrete monitoring system similar to the one used to produce the content.
There are other elements that allow to reproduce a certain immersive experience, such as sound bars and certain radiating elements that are based on reflecting the sound towards the ceiling. But let’s not fool ourselves, the sound that those home systems can generate is as good as that of a Ghetto Blaster from the 80s in Harlem (in fact, surely that sound was better).
So, if it’s all apparently complicated, ¿por qué audio inmersivo? Pues por varias razones. En lo pr áctico, because it is already present as technologyá presente como tecnología en múltiples dispositivos sin que ni siquiera lo hayamos buscado (SmartTV, teléfonos inteligentes, auriculares, salas de cine, etc.). En lo personal, porque la experiencia de escuchar audio inmersivo es muy superior a la de escuchar en el robusto e inmortal estéreo.
In human terms, because in reality, our brain, listens, with only two oídos, in immersive audio, since we see the light. Our brain is the más potente decodificador que existe, nos permite identificar la posición del vehículo que podría atropellarnos en la calle o el león que podría atacarnos en la selva, but it also spatially locates the trill of the bird that wakes us up in the morning or the noise of the wind on the leaves in a forest, and is capable of processing the spatiality of a choir or a tubular organ in a Gothic church.
It is the sonic difference between being liberated or being trapped. And this is reason enough to justify why it is worth experiencing the immersive audio technology that the industry has been able to massively implement over the last three decades.
If you haven’t experienced it fully yet, and you are in Santiago (Chile), visit Omni, feel it and understand why immersive audio is worth it. And listen to the work of Christopher Manhey or Morten Lindberg, and you will not require more answers to that question.
May 26, 2025, from some point in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Miguel Domínguez
He is responsible for Latin America at Genelec, a Finnish manufacturerérica en Genelec, fabricante finlandés cuya sede está rodeada de lagos y bosques, inmersa en medio de la naturaleza, dedicándose a diseñar y fabricar los sistemas sonoros de reproducción más precisos de la industria del audio para deleite y confianza de productores musicales y audiovisuales y de oyentes conocedores que buscan la felicidad auditiva.
