Auro's inventor, Wilfried Van Baelen, gave a presentation about immersive audio, a term he claims to have coined. Wilfred explicitly criticized the object-based approach taken by Dolby, noting that an object-based soundtrack mixes remain 90% channel based.
Wilfried Van Baelen talks about Auro 3D immersive audio.
The demonstration itself was a high-impact affair. A Datasat RS20i took care of Auro 3D processing, while a monster sound system from James Loudspeakers took care of the actual sound reproduction. One year earlier, I heard the best demo of CEDIA 2013—by Wisdom Audio—in the same room. The system from James Loudspeakers had similarly astonishing fidelity; I'm not familiar with the company, but after that demo I intend to find out more about what they do.
The James Loudspeakers as well as Datasat amplifiers that powered the Auro demo.
I was happy to hear real recordings of the live-recorded music during the demo. An organ recorded in a church, and an orchestra recorded in a concert hall provided excellent examples of what immersive audio can do for audiophiles: It puts the listener right into that space, and the effect sounds authentic—as far as I can tell, it is the audiophile ideal.
I also appreciated the thorough demonstration of the three layers that make up the Auro 3D soundfield—the lower layer, the height layer, and the top layer. By turning each layer on and off while playing various clips, the demo effectively deconstructed the elements that make up an Auro immersive audio experience.
A Datasat RS20i took care of Auro 3D processing.
When it comes to immersive audio, CEDIA 2014 belonged to Dolby, but that doesn't make the Auro demo any less impressive. And if there's one thing I got out of the Auro demo, it's that immersive audio is here to stay, and I want to implement it one form or another in my own system—asap.
The demonstration itself was a high-impact affair. A Datasat RS20i took care of Auro 3D processing, while a monster sound system from James Loudspeakers took care of the actual sound reproduction. One year earlier, I heard the best demo of CEDIA 2013—by Wisdom Audio—in the same room. The system from James Loudspeakers had similarly astonishing fidelity; I'm not familiar with the company, but after that demo I intend to find out more about what they do.
I was happy to hear real recordings of the live-recorded music during the demo. An organ recorded in a church, and an orchestra recorded in a concert hall provided excellent examples of what immersive audio can do for audiophiles: It puts the listener right into that space, and the effect sounds authentic—as far as I can tell, it is the audiophile ideal.
I also appreciated the thorough demonstration of the three layers that make up the Auro 3D soundfield—the lower layer, the height layer, and the top layer. By turning each layer on and off while playing various clips, the demo effectively deconstructed the elements that make up an Auro immersive audio experience.
When it comes to immersive audio, CEDIA 2014 belonged to Dolby, but that doesn't make the Auro demo any less impressive. And if there's one thing I got out of the Auro demo, it's that immersive audio is here to stay, and I want to implement it one form or another in my own system—asap.