HWM Singapore – June 2019

we want to let people know how
immersive audio is attractive. So, we
choose the music streaming format.
That was the  rst motivation for us.

And this will work with all
speakers and headphones?
How is it that it works with all
headphones/speakers without
any special calibration?
 Nageno: We’ve introduced just
the technical concept at CES,
so no concrete product plan
has been established yet. But
basically, it has the possibility
to reproduce 360 RA with
speakers or headphones;
any kind of audio

reproduction systems. Technically

it’s possible.

What’s the hardest part of

developing 360-degree audio?

 Nageno: We only just started,

but one big challenge we foresee

is making a full 3D sound, because

it’s a challenge to make sound from

above and below. Existing audio has

only the up side and no down side,

so we’re trying to make a canvas

just like whole 360-degree vertical.

That’s a challenge. One more thing

is getting good quality for streaming

data rate. So under MPEG-H we

make something common; an open

platform with three immersive

quality levels that you can choose

basedonyourconnectionrate.

We only just started,

but one big challenge

we foresee is making a

full 3D sound, because

it’s a challenge to

make sound from

above and below.

With headphones we

typically only think of two

channels – Left and Right. How

many channels can we achieve

with 360 Reality Audio?

 Nageno: Logically, any number.

It’s just software. But typically, we

choose 13 virtual speaker locations.

360 audio content format is just

object-based, so the sound location

can be any place. Each vocalist and

each instrument has its own place

and soundtrack, so sound location

can be any place.

KOJI NAGENO,

Senior Acoustic

Architect

JUNE 2019 | HWM 41