2018 AES International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality

The Audio Engineering Society is promoting its second International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality. The conference and exhibition will bring together a community of influential research scientists, engineers, VR and AR developers, and content providers to explore topics such as spatial audio capture, binaural, ambisonics, wave field synthesis techniques, 3D Sound field navigation, HRTF modeling, reverb and room acoustics synthesis, 3D audio content production, and sound design for VR/AR. The three-day conference takes place in Redmond, WA.

The word was out for some time that Audeze was working on something big and now it's official. The high end headphone brand has expanded its market scope with the launch of the Mobius headphones, targeting gamers and content creators working with 3D audio platforms. Mobius implementation delivers a premium high-end, fully immersive 3D cinematic audio and head tracking-enabled headphone design, powered by Audeze’s planar magnetic technologies.

COMSOL announced the latest release of the COMSOL Multiphysics and COMSOL Server simulation software. Version 5.3 provides notable performance improvements and powerful app design and deployment capabilities with new modeling and development tools, solvers, and user-driven features. Those using the Acoustics Module will benefit from new functionality that greatly improves time-domain simulations of acoustics phenomena and facilitates solving large acoustics-based models.

Digital signal processing solutions specialist Waves Audio, confirmed the availability of its new Waves Nx, Virtual Mix Room solution for mixing with headphones. This new acoustics emulation plugin simulates depth, natural reflections, and the stereo image of an actual, physical room, allowing for a “virtual speaker” experience on headphones, allowing mixing even for 5.1 surround on regular stereo headphones.

Primacoustic (a division of Radial Engineering) is now offering a comprehensive room acoustics analysis service that can be accessed through the company’s website. The new free room acoustics calculator walks the user through the process of entering the required measurements and information. Once completed, the service provides a room analysis along with suggested materials and estimated budget for the installation.

Flux has completed the migration to IRCAM SPAT v3 adding support for AVID AAX and 64 bit systems. Spat v3 introduces state of the art algorithms for room acoustics simulation utilizing advanced perceptive models, allowing for intuitive user interaction capabilities in stereo and surround configurations.