Is Immersive sound the future ?

Nowadays, all movies released in theatres are shown in an immersive way. It’s been a long time since “simple” stereo was abandoned in favour of sound that travels throughout the room.

The same is not yet completely true for music, that is predominantly listened to in stereo. However, more and more distribution channels are now offering immersive music productions.

With the arrival of the Dolby Atmos standard and partners like Apple, Amazon, TIDAL or Spotify, more and more artists are now looking to produce their content in an immersive format.

UHD Dolby Atmos- RTS - A23-M and A14-M
Dolby Atmos @ RTS UHD

A23-M and A14-M

What this means for loudspeakers

Dolby Atmos, Surround, Ambisonic, Auro 3D, etc. There are numerous standards of immersive sound as well as the possibility to create different ones. What they all have in common is that they require many sources of sound around the room instead of simply two.

Like in any sound reproduction setup, the quality of the loudspeakers is paramount. The advantages that PSI Audio’s monitors have become even more important in an immersive setup.

The flat frequency response, linear phase response, natural dynamics and uncoloured sound make it a reference for stereo or immersive production, mixing and mastering.

Real like immersive sound is about reproducing “Precision Sound Image” as in PSI Audio

Immersive sound is all about positioning the sound in a three-dimensional environment through the combination of sound sources. It is absolutely vital that all loudspeakers are coherent in frequency and phase for the sound stage to resemble seamless reality.

All of PSI Audio’s monitors have identical flat frequency and linear phase response, differing only in size, sound pressure level and bottom end bandwidth.

PSI Audio’s range of products is the best choice you can make for any immersive sound

Our perfectly coherent range of products allows you to pick and choose any monitor for any position depending on its distance to the listening position.
See the complete range

The importance of a dedicated center speaker

The center speaker is often difficult to position as ideally it should be where a screen remains. In most productions, the center speaker is responsible for reproducing voices and lead instruments, typically with a high level of mid-range frequencies. For these reasons we developed a specific center speaker that is compact and easy to position, and where sound pressure levels were optimised more than low-frequency bandwidth. The A214-M is the perfect centre speaker when space is limited, typically by a screen.

Subwoofer and low-frequency effect – LFE

Our subwoofers were developed to extend the range of our monitors down to 24 or 28 Hz with a perfectly seamless response between monitors and subwoofer. Therefore, they act as an extra way of the monitor with the same frequential and temporal precision that enables to clearly hear each low-frequency content separately and accurately.

In an immersive setup the subwoofer typically has a separate channel and with its own specificities such as having +10 dB on the input and being able to reproduce frequencies up to around 150 Hz.

Our Sub A225-M equipped with our Router and Bass Management allows, not only to be used as a Low Frequency Effect but also to be used as a range extender for the front and surround monitors.

Mounting

All our monitors can be equipped with brackets for easy mounting on the ceiling or against walls.
An optional metal grille also protects the transducers.

PSI Audio AVAA C20

Don’t forget the room modes

Don’t forget that the room is probably the second contributor to sound quality even in an immersive setup.

Low-frequency room modes are by far the most disturbing sound artefact coming from the room and our active bass traps AVAA C20 (analog) and AVAA C214 (digital) is the most effective solution to significantly reduce the long decay time inherent to room modes.