Shaping the future of the audio world and creating unique sound experiences for customers: this is what Sennheiser has stood for since more than 75 years. After 50 years, the audio specialist will now once again be concentrating fully on the professional business. With its three business units, Pro Audio, Business Communication and Neumann.Berlin, the Sennheiser Group aims to achieve sustainable growth and further expand its strong global position as a provider of professional audio solutions. The Consumer Electronics business that was previously part of the Sennheiser Group has been fully transferred to Sonova Holding AG - one of the leading providers of hearing solutions - effective March 1, 2022. 

"In the future, we will focus our resources and financial strength on our Pro Audio, Business Communication, and Neumann business units. Here, we plan to grow at an above-average rate, further expand our position in the global market, and successively extend our business areas," explains Daniel Sennheiser, Co-CEO of Sennheiser. "From now on, we are looking forward to working even more closely with our customers in the professional sector and being even closer to the market. This is where we will leverage all of our knowledge and extensive expertise as one of the world's leading companies in the audio industry," adds Andreas Sennheiser, Co-CEO of Sennheiser. 

In recent years, the Sennheiser Group has laid all the foundations for a successful future as a professional audio company: "We have transformed the company and - despite the pandemic - can look back on a very successful financial year: we were not only able to meet our sales targets for 2021 in all business areas, but even exceeded our own expectations despite the fact that the event industry in particular remained characterized by uncertainty for the second year in a row due to the Covid-19 pandemic," comments Daniel Sennheiser.  

Describing the Sennheiser Group’s clear goals for the future Andreas Sennheiser explains: "As a family-owned company, we want to grow sustainably through our own efforts. To achieve this, we are investing significantly in our three business units." 

In the Pro Audio unit, the audio specialist plans to continue to exceed the high expectations of its customers in the live and broadcast business with reliable audio solutions and first-class sound quality. The range will be expanded with complementary software solutions for optimal workflows. Sennheiser sees growth opportunities particularly in the fast-growing markets for semi-professional applications, such as audio-for-video. 

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In the Business Communications unit, Sennheiser will greatly expand its portfolio of audio solutions for universities and corporate meeting rooms in the coming years. The goal is to be present with Sennheiser products in the majority of the world's lecture halls and meeting rooms and to offer customers solutions that are not only audibly better and easier to use, but in particular address the challenges of hybrid working and learning.  

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With its legendary products, Neumann.Berlin is already one of the world's best-known brands for studio-quality audio solutions. This business area is to be expanded in the future with a strong focus on digital workflows and extended software and service solutions, as well as with new product offerings, for example for close miking of instruments. Growth opportunities also arise from new customer requirements in the areas of mobile working, streaming, and immersive audio.  

With Sonova - one of the leading providers of hearing solutions - Sennheiser has found a strong partner who has fully taken over the Consumer business and will further expand it. Following the sale, Sennheiser and Sonova's Consumer Hearing business will operate together under the Sennheiser brand umbrella. A long-term license agreement has been agreed with Sonova for the use of the Sennheiser brand. 

One of the most interesting innovations in audio over the last decade has been the ability to create immersive, 3D soundscapes, with integrators and artists collaborating, experimenting, and innovating with specialist manufacturers to push the envelope of possibilities. 

A 3D Canvas

One such example is the new Pase Platform facility in Venice, Italy, a collaboration between Omri Revesz Design, Zerozoro graphic design, Lawo—German designers and manufacturers of network, control, audio, and video technology—and loudspeaker and amplifier manufacturer d&b audiotechnik, also from Germany. Technical support was provided by installation specialists MediaCare, and Italian rental company BH audio, which specializes in classical, contemporary, and jazz production work.

Related: The Latest in 3D Audio

Pase is a permanent installation housed in a 70-square-meter modular pavilion in an old Venetian building that is configured according to the artistic necessities and techniques of the hosted productions. It’s an ongoing experimental project for artists who want to explore new ways of using sound, allowing them to experiment with the creation of soundscapes. 

The installation was conceived as a working platform for artistic experimentation, mainly for sound production, where advanced technology—such as Soundscape by d&b audiotechnik, powered by 24 d&b loudspeakers—is a key element. Pase celebrates this production technology with the use of a motorized height-adjustable ring, made from black powder-coated steel profiles, equipped with a cluster of lights, strobe, a fog machine, and a mixing desk—transforming the space into a high-tech sound production machine.

The Lawo mc2-series console serves as audio mixer and remote control for the d&b Soundscape immersive live audio technology solution, allowing the sound engineer to remain in the sweet spot. Powered by the DS100 Signal Engine—a revolutionary audio system processor based on a powerful Dante-enabled signal matrix—the d&b Soundscape provides unparalleled creativity through its two software modules, En-Scene and En-Space.

“Our go-to solution for great performance is always the combination of Lawo, d&b loudspeakers, and Soundscape,” said MediaCare owner and BH audio associate Massimo Carli. 

“First of all, it's worth mentioning their reliability, [but] what is also important to us is their adaptability to any situation. Soundscape and the Lawo mc2 consoles really are customizable and straightforward to use, even for people with very little experience. Having a good setup from the start means being able to provide the artist with anything he might need on the go, which is sometimes vital.”

The process of creating these 3D sound environments largely depends upon the technology that is being deployed, according to Carli, and in this case d&b Soundscape relies on wave-field synthesis, or WFS.

“This technique (through En-Scene software) places virtual sound sources or 'objects' in real space,” Carli said. “You cannot trace back the origin of sound to the loudspeaker. Another interesting feature of Soundscape is the En-Space software, which can be used to bring the room acoustics of a place in another. These two characteristics allow great creativity for an artist. 

“Together with a Lawo console and its integration with Soundscape, the whole workflow is straightforward and intuitive, which means artists can get a handle of the system quickly, making residencies an easy solution.”

An Immersive Festival

Lawo, d&b audiotechnik, MediaCare, and BH Audio also teamed up to work on an intricate 3D audio setup enabling music festival organizers to transform a trade show venue with notoriously bad sound into a concert hall for Italy’s 2018 Ravenna Festival, which took place in June and July of that year in the city of Ravenna.

The Ravenna project started out as a request for a Lawo mc2-series mixing console and then evolved into a project utilizing d&b Soundscape to recreate concert-hall sound at a venue built for trade fairs. The solution was so well received by festival organizer Riccardo Muti and his wife, it was later also used in a number of opera houses, in an attempt to allow singers to remain within a comfortable level range.

BH Audio had, for the previous three years, used the combination of the d&b/Lawo platform for critical trials ahead of d&b Soundscape’s official launch at ISE 2018. Massimo Carli used this expertise to inform his work on the Ravenna Festival system setup. 

Heading up the Ravenna project, Carli chose Lawo’s IP audio-capable mc236 console for front-of-house mixing, as he had previously been convinced of its adaptability during a Verdi Festival staged at the Farnese Theater in Parma.

“After three weeks of rehearsal [for the Verdi Festival] the producers wanted multi-track recordings to be made,” Carli said. “This was easy, using two recording systems connected to the console through Ravenna [RAVENNA/AES67 Virtual Audio Device by Merging Technologies].

“Then I was asked to add all the intercom and dressing room calls for the singers and choir—this was possible using only the desk’s channels and internal matrix. One day, immediately before the general rehearsal, I was asked to send sound to all the rooms in the theater. The mc236 made it possible to meet all the requests without problems—it was very easy, and very fast. With other live consoles that we have in our warehouse, it would have been much more complicated, and I probably would have needed additional equipment.”

With regard to the Ravenna Festival itself, Carli said that using RAVENNA/AES67 ensured a “very clean” setup: “From the mc236, I can send 44 direct outs and 20 post-fader AUXes to the Soundscape DS100 processor via one of its three RAVENNA/AES67 ports. And I send the DS100 outputs to the AES/EBU outputs of the Lawo Stagebox directly to the various loudspeakers. We also used a tracking system through the network to dynamically transmit the correct position of the singers to the DS100.” 

Introducing the mc236 to the Ravenna Festival simplified the sound setup compared with previous years, as it required only the console and Lawo Compact I/O Stagebox in addition to the d&b DS100—connected using Cisco switches via RAVENNA/AES67. Previously, it had required an analog console with AES/EBU A/D converters, a format converter, an audio matrix and a multicore, delivering an AES/EBU output to the amplifiers.

“The mc236 gives you endless possibilities of preparation for your layout, and you can change and modify it really easy and quickly without interrupting the sound or going into ‘dangerous’ operation,” Carli said. “With most of my jobs, you have to add channels or change routing or something right up until last second—or even during the event itself. With mc236, it is never a problem.”

When it comes to the next wave in live, experiential sound, Carli and Giulia Nicosia, assistant sound engineer at both MediaCare and BH audio, both believe that 3D or spatial audio is currently experiencing its “peak moment.”

“Most companies that work in the audio business have now concentrated on this technology,” Nicosia said. “What I personally find most interesting about its possibilities is that this kind of technology is capable of being in the spotlight, actively being part of the artistic process, and also being hidden—by using it to make the whole PA disappear resulting in a sound that is extremely natural. All the nuances between these two results make this technology extremely valuable today and in the future.”

As to the future, Carli added that there has been a definite increase in the demand for more realistic and high-quality audio reproduction in recent times, and he expects this to inform what comes next—even in these challenging times where social distancing is making technological installations more difficult to facilitate. 

“Especially in these trying times for the industry, we've been asked to provide content via internet, but the general feeling is that this will stay after the crisis. Therefore we are working toward high-quality, natural-sounding streaming, and this requires the right tools in order to be able to provide feeds to two independent, completely different kinds of content transportation—assuming that you cannot just double your console and staff. For these two objectives we are again still working with Lawo and Soundscape to provide the best listening experience possible.”

Having celebrated its opening earlier this year, Spyscape in New York, NY is a new museum dedicated to the world of espionage. Over the course of a couple of hours, visitors are taken on a journey of the shadowy underworld of spooks both real and fictitious, and they’re even invited to test their skills. Think you’re a good liar? Do you vaunt your ability to keep a secret? Do you fancy yourself to be observant? At Spyscape, you’ll find out if you have what it takes to be the next James Bond or Lana Kane.

The Spyscape experience is an immersive one, complete with carefully crafted visuals and sound. At the heart of the museum’s audio system is L-ISA, L-Acoustics’ immersive audio system comprised of processing, mixing, and playback to deliver three-dimensional sound. Guillaume Le Nost, L-ISA research and development director at the loudspeaker manufacturer, headquartered in Marcoussis, France, explained that this is now possible thanks to a major shift in how audio is mixed. “One of the main technological developments [in immersive audio] is the move from channel-based mixing (mixing to a bus) to object-based mixing (mixing to a position),” he said. “[This] means that a mix can now be independent from a speaker reproduction layout.” He added that digital processing through FPGA (field-programmable gate array) or CPU (central processing unit) cores also contribute by allowing for “massive” multichannel sound processing in real time, and that audio-over-IP technologies facilitate the deployment of immersive speakers.

For performance venues, Le Nost pointed out that VR and AR are driving the demand for immersive audio. “Virtual reality and augmented reality use binaural technology to bring 3D sound to the experience, [and] live show expectations are fed by these other experiences,” he said. He also noted that 3D audio lets engineers “focus” sound, citing two main advantages this offers: “The first one is what L-ISA calls ‘hyperrealism’—the sensation of localizing the sound where the visual action takes place, to a point where one totally forgets the sound is reinforced,” he explained. “This is achieved by replacing the traditional L/R systems with a frontal array of at least five speaker points.” The second main advantage is what L-ISA refers to as “immersion”: it’s what gives audience members the feeling of being “in” the sound. “This can be achieved by extending the frontal array to surround or height speakers.”

In museums, this technology has the potential to contribute to the creation of what Le Nost dubbed “immersive realism” in interactive expositions, or for playback. “For playback, L-ISA is promoting a new reproduction format called Blu 23.1 that highlights all the benefits of 3D audio, and contains all other consumer formats,” he said. “This format is the result of years of research and is optimized to match human abilities to perceive sounds in space.” He added that he believes Blu 23.1 should garner interest among sound artists seeking a “no-compromise platform.”

Martin Audio, a loudspeaker manufacturer headquartered in High Wycombe, U.K., offers Sound Adventures, an object-based 3D immersive audio system that was created in partnership with Astro Spatial Audio, a sound technology developer based in Odiliapeel, the Netherlands. At the system’s core is the SARA II Premium Rendering Engine, and the technology has the capacity to move audio sources in real time, or via time-code, cue-based, or tracking systems. Again, the goal behind this is to enable audience members to hear the sound “objects,” rather than the loudspeakers themselves.

d&b Soundscape, developed by d&b audiotechnik, a loudspeaker manufacturer headquartered in Backnang, Germany, is an immersive audio system based on delay-based localization. The system combines three main components: d&b’s DS100 Signal Engine with Dante networking, the d&b En-Scene software module for sound object positioning, and the d&b En-Space, a software module that acts as a room emulator, enabling the addition or modification of a room’s reverberation signatures. Soundscape can be used in both fixed installations as well as on tour, and has been put to the test by a number of productions, including Sting’s Last Ship and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s updated Starlight Express.

“[Our point of view] is that with a channel-based system, it’s not possible to get a consistent sound image for the entire audience, [and that] everybody should hear the sound correctly—not just the people seated in the [center seating],” said Georg Stummer, product manager for Soundscape and the DS100 at d&b. “The second thing is, with an object-based system, the resolution of the many sound events that are taking place on stage is much higher than in a channel-based system.”

For tech managers who find themselves delving into the world of immersive audio, Le Nost listed a number of questions to help guide the design process: Is the project about localization, immersion, or both? Is there a main “visual anchor,” such as a stage, involved? Will the sound be static, or will there be many trajectories? Will the experience involve interaction with the public? He also pointed out that 3D audio designs call for more speakers than traditional sound reinforcement designs, which heightens the level of required planning and coordination with those working in lighting, video, and rigging. To ensure as smooth a process as possible, he urges tech managers to plan ahead. “[My] main advice would be to think about sound as early as possible in a project,” he said.

Carolyn Heinze is a freelance writer/editor.

Info

ASTRO SPATIAL AUDIO
www.astroaudio.eu

D&B AUDIOTECHNIK GMBH
www.dbaudio.com

L-ACOUSTICS
www.l-acoustics.com
www.l-isa-immersive.com

SENNHEISER
www.sennheiser.com

Heady Stuff for Creatives

Sennheiser’s AMBEO Smart Headset for iOS is designed for content creators that want to capture 3D audio with their mobile devices. The headset, which creates binaural recordings, is equipped with two omni-directional mics in the earpieces, as well as an A/D converter, a mic preamp, and SoftLimit technology. The two microphones serve to capture the small differences in timbre, timing, and volume that surface as sound coming from difference directions arrives at each ear. Sennheiser says that when this captured audio is played back on stereo headphones, the sound is “lifelike.”

I press play, and I’m back on the frenzied streets of Marrakesh. Mopeds dart past in all directions, a souk vendor beckons from behind me in Arabic, and Gnawa music jingles off in the distance. Throw in the smell of some sizzling tagine, and one might almost believe he had been mysteriously transported within the walls of the old-world city.  

I recently traveled around Morocco with my wife on our honeymoon, a fascinating adventure in a delightfully foreign land. With me, I brought a Sennheiser AMBEO Smart Headset—which features microphones on each earpiece for 3D audio recording—to help capture the experience. In various locations around Marrakesh, I shot scenes in 4K60 video with binaural sound, and while the footage looks fantastic, the audio is the real souvenir. 

There’s a couple reasons for this. For one, video has a long way to go to reach audio’s power of verisimilitude. To achieve full visual immersion, we’ll need virtual reality headsets capable of playing back video at 8K per eye to resolve the intrusive presence of pixel grids. Meanwhile, today’s audio equipment can readily replicate the richness of musical instruments and the subtleties of speech, and as 3D recording and playback techniques advance, recreate full environments. But even when video finally catches up to the immersive fidelity of audio, it still won’t compete with the intimate connection humans have with sound.

We have physiological and emotional ties to the things we hear, bonds that are perhaps stronger than those of any other sense. Combinations of sounds can put us physically on edge, at ease, or make us want to dance; certain songs immediately call up moments in life for which they served as a soundtrack. Many years from now, when I stumble upon my Morocco videos and listen, I’ll be immersed not only in the action of the Marrakesh Medina, but also in the memory of one of the happiest periods of my life.

Ok, so I’m a big fan of audio—and writing for an AV audience, I’m surely preaching to the choir. But, since we’re at our best when we combine our passions with practice and study, we’ve dedicated our November issue of AV Technology to audio, to help bring you up to speed on the latest in pro audio for meetings, conferencing, concerts, and more. In the Tech Manager’s Guide to Audio for All-Hands Meetings, we provide expert insight and case studies that illustrate the challenges of pulling off these crucial gatherings without a hitch; in our Drill Down and AV in Action pieces, we examine how networked audio protocols are making life easier for a range of applications; and in our features, we take a look at how spatial audio is taking places like museums and performance venues to a new level.

Because, although “audio” is just half of our industry’s name, it’s really so much more. It’s the difference between a productive meeting and a frustrating failure, between a successful videoconference and a useless silent film—and between a moment’s simple recollection and its visceral reliving. 

To hear the video, check out my review of the Sennheiser AMBEO Smart Headset on TWICE.com.

The Audio Engineering Society will hold the second International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality on August 20–22, 2018, at the DigiPen Institute of Technology, Redmond, WA. The conference and exhibition will bring together a community of influential research scientists, engineers, VR and AR developers, and content creators.

The conference’s esteemed keynote presenters—Jean-Marc Jot, distinguished fellow, Magic Leap; Ivan Tashev, partner architect, Microsoft Research Labs Redmond; and Ravish Mehra, lead research scientist, Facebook Reality Labs—are at the forefront of innovation for VR and AR.

“Audio and video are integral components of AR/VR devices,” Tashev said. “Spatial audio is an area still under development; we need better capture, representation, and rendering technologies. To make it mainstream, we have to catch up with authoring and editing tools as well.”

The three-day conference and expo will focus on the dissemination of top-level research in the field of spatial audio for virtual and augmented reality, with demonstrations and discussions focused on technical solutions and recommended practices. Leading researchers, practitioners, and industry luminaries will offer panel discussions, tutorials, and workshops on new and forthcoming technologies.

The conference promises to be as interactive and cross-disciplinary as the field of VR and AR itself, and will include an exhibition of relevant software and product demos. The conference will bring together talented researchers and developers who are creating the next generation of audio tools for immersive content, with presentation topics including:

• The state of AR/VR audio content development tools and workflows, including personalized versus generic HRTFs
• Realistic sound propagation for immersing the user in virtual environments
• Auditory distance discrimination in cinematic virtual reality
• Spatial audio capture, rendering, and synthesis over headphones and speakers
• Binaural, ambisonics, and wave field synthesis techniques
• 3D sound field navigation
• HRTF modeling and derivation from optical and/or acoustic measurements
• Reverb and room acoustics synthesis
• 3D audio mixing and content production
• Music and sound design for VR/AR
• Higher education and immersive media
• Sound for 360 VR
• XR [extended reality] audio in diverse industries
• Dialogue for VR/AR and MPEG-H