spatial audio

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

audio technology that creates the perception of sounds positioned in three-dimensional space around the listener, going beyond the left-right stereo image of conventional audio to simulate the height and depth of a sonic environment; spatial audio formats include Dolby Atmos, Sony 360 Reality Audio, and binaural audio rendered for headphones using head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) that mimic how the human ear localises sound from different directions; spatial audio is increasingly central to music streaming (Apple Music and Tidal both offer Dolby Atmos mixes), cinema sound design, virtual reality experiences, and gaming; the field draws on psychoacoustics — the science of how humans perceive sound — to create immersive listening experiences that match or surpass what is possible in physical acoustic spaces