- A live performance by Zara Larsson will be streamed on Sony’s 360 Reality Audio on Monday.
- There is also a new Creative Suite plug-in for 360 Reality Audio that is compatible with “popular digital audio workstations”.
- 360 Reality Audio compatible smart speakers are coming this spring.
Right before the start of CES 2021, Sony made a handful of announcements regarding its 360 Reality audio standard in an effort to bring it to more people.
First, Sony will stream a performance by pop musician Zara Larsson via the company’s Artist Connection app. People with compatible headphones who have set up 360 Reality Audio through the Sony Headphones Connect app can hear with spatial audio to create the feeling of actually being at a concert. The performance will be streamed on Monday, January 11, 2021 at 5 p.m. EST.
360 Reality Audio is the audio standard introduced by Sony in 2019, which can create a 3D audio experience in music instead of the typical stereo mix from left to right. There’s a lot of technical wizardry going on, but basically, instruments and vocal tracks are treated as objects in 3D space that a producer can manipulate and place in specific positions around the listener. Setting up the audio standard is a bit of a hassle – you have to take pictures of your ears and go through an analysis process in the Headphones Connect app – but once you do, the music really sounds like it’s coming at you from all angles.
Currently, only Tidal can stream music using the standard. This could be one of the best ways to experience them without having to spend money on a subscription.
The company also announced a new Creative Suite plug-in for popular digital audio workstations that makes creating 360 Reality Audio content easier. According to the website, this creative suite allows producers to place sounds such as vocals, instruments and even audience noises in a 360-degree spherical sound field based on Sony’s spatial sound technologies. The plugin is apparently being developed by Audio Futures, a subsidiary of Virtual Sonics, Inc., by the end of the month. You can already register for an invitation on the website.
Sony also announced two new speakers in the spring that will support 360 Reality Audio, but didn’t announce any pricing. The SRS-RA5000 and SRS-RA3000 are both Wi-Fi enabled speakers, compatible with the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, and use Sony’s algorithms to accurately output spatial audio in a room. Device compatibility has been a major barrier to introducing this new standard. Hence, it’s always nice to see new products that use it.
Next: 5 things we want to see from Sony in 2021