On Friday, October 30 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., The Immersive Audio Listening Experience—presented by Sono Luminus, Auro Technologies, PMC Speakers, 2L, and Pure Audio Blu-ray—will showcase the 9.1 Auro-3D listening environment during the 2015 AES Convention at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. This listening event will be held in the PMC Speakers’ Masters of Audio Demo Room, located on the 100 Level at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.
The event will include music samples curated and discussed by Grammy Award–nominated Sono Luminus engineer Dan Shores, 2L label founder and Grammy Award–nominated engineer Morten Lindberg, and cellist, composer, and Sono Luminus artist Peter Gregson. At 7 p.m., radio host Helga Davis of Q2 Music, the new music online stream of WQXR, will interview and lead a Q&A with Gregson about the process of composing for 9.1 Auro-3D.
Wilfried Van Baelen first introduced his Auro-3D concept at the AES Convention in 2006 followed by four years of intense development. The Auro-3D format was launched in 2010 in Tokyo and is set to become a new standard for true immersive 3-D sound. The move from stereo or two-dimensional surround sound formats (5.1/7.1) to Auro-3D is a breakthrough achieved by adding the missing third dimension of height in front and around the listener, revolutionizing audio by immersing the listener in 540 degrees of sound. Auro-3D’s “vertical stereo field” around the listener creates a totally new level of immersion and marks a major leap in the evolution of natural sound reproduction.
Thanks to the addition of height channels, natural acoustic reflections reach the listener as they would in real life, originating not only from around but also from above.
Auro-3D has both 5.1 Surround and Auro 9.1 in one standard PCM delivery file with high-resolution audio in each channel, making easy distribution on any system in the world possible. Mixes created in the Auro-3D format are released on Blu-ray. In addition, existing stereo and surround sound mixes of film and music can be rendered into an Auro-3D experience through the Auro-Matic upmixing engine software. The Auro-3D format is or will soon be available in many consumer applications, with home cinema, mobile, automotive, and gaming versions all bringing the new immersive Auro-3D sound to the market.
Sono Luminus has recently released three new albums in Auro-3D on Pure Audio Blu-ray, including Touch by cellist and composer Peter Gregson, who will discuss his process of composing for and recording in Auro-3D at the October 30 event. Touch comprises eight tracks for analog synthesizer, cello, piano and string orchestra.
Sono Luminus will also showcase In the Light of Air: ICE Performs Anna Thorvaldsdottír, recorded by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) and released in August. The Sono Luminus album From Whence We Came from Ensemble Galilei, an ensemble of players from both classical and Celtic backgrounds which infuses ancient music with a spirit of improvisation and liveliness, will also be presented.
2L releases to be featured during the listening session include Magnificat by Nidarosdomens jentekor and TrondheimSolistene, featuring music by Norwegian composers Kim André Arnesen and Ola Gjeilo and American composer Aaron Jay Kernis, and Spes by Cantus featuring ethereal music by Norwegian composer Frode Fjellheim. Under the direction of its conductor Tove Ramlo-Ystad, and in collaboration with composer and musician Frode Fjellheim, Cantus explores contemporary spiritual music with its roots in Sami music, the only indigenous people of Scandinavia.
“We are so excited about the creative possibilities we now have thanks to working with Auro-3D’s immersive sound, that we truly want everyone to know about it,” says Sono Luminus CEO Collin Rae. “It is wonderful to be able to demonstrate the power of Auro-3D and the immersive listening experience that comes with it by using the world renowned PMC (The Professional Monitor Company) QB1-XBD-A high resolution speakers. Together with Auro Technologies and Pure Audio, I feel we all have the common goal of helping the world hear this amazing sound experience.”
Morten Lindberg, founder and CEO of 2L, says, “I have recorded music in 5.1 surround sound since 2004. Then I met with Wilfried Van Baelen from Auro-3D at the Nordic Sound Symposium three years ago. He challenged me to explore the height dimension. Two weeks later we set out for a remote medieval church with TrondheimSolistene and recorded our first album in the 9.1 Auro-3D configuration. I believe that our album Souvenir was the first-ever commercial album produced in immersive audio. The development of the Pure Audio Blu-Ray screen-less navigation now makes it possible to reach out to a large home entertainment audience with our music recordings.”
An RSVP is required to attend this event. To RSVP, send an email to [email protected].
Visit Auro Technologies at www.auro-3d.com.
Visit Sono Luminus at www.sonoluminus.com.
Visit 2L at www.2l.no.
Visit PMC Speakers at pmc-speakers.com.
