Sony 360 Reality Audio | So Immersive. So Real. (2023)

FAQs

Does 360 Reality Audio make a difference? ›

Bottom line. I'm extremely impressed by Sony's 360 Reality Audio system for headphones. It allows artists to effectively expand the soundstage into 3D space around the listener, resulting in a much more comfortable and compelling musical experience.

How it sounds with Speakers. In Stereo, sounds are sourced from just two speakers. With 360 Reality Audio, sound sources – vocals, instruments and effects – are each placed on a 360 sphere that surrounds the listener and creates an immersive experience.

360 Reality Audio is a new immersive music experience using Sony's 360 Spatial Sound technology. Dynamically place and control individual sounds in a 360 spherical sound field and immerse listeners in sound from all around.

Listen with Speakers

With Amazon Music Unlimited , deezer, nugs.net, and Tidal smartphone apps and compatible subscription, enjoy 360 Reality Audio with compatible speakers. *Activation of Chromecast built-in is required to listen on Deezer and nugs.net.

Compared to 360 Reality Audio, Dolby Atmos Music has the advantage that attention is paid to loudness normalisation and thus no strong loudness jumps occur. A different HRTF (head-related transfer function) is also used for binauralisation.

And yes it can sound marginally better than CD-quality. BUT 1) the difference is minor AND 2) you still need a decent hifi system to hear it AND 3) you need to find that 24bit/48kHz content — around 4-5% of all available music.

Designed using what Sony calls “object-based spatial audio technology,” Sony's new 360 Reality Audio speakers (on sale right now for $178 at Amazon) create a concert-like environment in your own home by “floating” the music around you, rather than pointing it directly at you.

Apple Music

Another strong contender for audiophiles, Apple Music boasts a catalog of more than 90 million songs with support for Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 Reality Audio on almost all plan types. Plus, you can download some of those higher-tier audiophile formats.

Amazon Music Unlimited has a growing catalog of Spatial Audio songs mastered in Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio from some of the world's biggest artists.

Immersive sound provides a natural, lifelike three-dimensional sound experience unlike anything heard before in traditional 2D surround solutions. The additional sensation of height in immersive audio together with the surrounds all around the audience, transports you into a more thrilling and deeper audio experience.

Is 360 spatial audio worth it? ›

Spatial audio doesn't make much sense if the only time you listen to music is at the gym. It may also not be the best option for those who only stream videos during their commutes. We recommend listening to spatial audio content from a quiet, controlled environment, so you don't find it distracting.

iPhone or iPad: Go to Settings , then tap the name of your AirPods near the top of the screen. Tap Personalized Spatial Audio, then tap Stop Using Personalized Spatial Audio.

The Netflix Premium plan includes access to Netflix spatial audio to give you an immersive cinematic sound experience. Netflix spatial audio enhances stereo audio without the requirement for surround sound speakers or home theater equipment and is compatible with all devices.

Netflix initially announced support for theater-like spatial audio — using existing stereo speakers — last summer. Spatial audio, in theory, provides a 360-degree audio experience, including reproducing sounds that are designed to come from behind the viewer.

See if the smartphone and the speaker are connected to the same wireless router (Access Point). Remember, you cannot play 360 Reality Audio music via a Bluetooth connection.

The higher the bit rate, the better. You'd think that Dolby Atmos, being the more widely known brand name, would be the one with the higher bit rate. However, it's DTS:X has the higher bit rate.

Yes! Movie streaming platforms with Dolby Atmos (From: Dolby). The quality Dolby Atmos lends to movies is unreal, even without a massive home theater setup. So it'll be worth the investment if you're a movie buff and really into immersive audio.

Project Caviar is Google's plan to replace Dolby Vision and Atmos.

Hi-Res audio is still very much alive even though it's an essentially useless thing. It's a fake set of standards that don't do anything to improve audio playback. It solely exists to separate listeners who yearn for better quality from more and more cash.

What is the best audio format for sound quality? A lossless audio file format is the best format for sound quality. These include FLAC, WAV, or AIFF. These types of files are considered “hi-res” because they are better or equal to CD-quality.

Can you hear difference between CD and hi-res? ›

When comparing bitrate, or the amount of data transferred per second, High-Resolution Audio's bitrate (9,216 kbps) is nearly seven times higher than that of CDs (1,411 kbps) and almost 29 times higher than that of MP3s (320 kbps). And the higher the bitrate, the more accurately the signal is measured.

In all cases, you'll need a paid-for subscription to hear the right tracks. Amazon Music HD also has Sony 360 Reality Audio tracks, though at first, these will only be for playback through its speakers, not other hardware – of which more later.

Check Applicable Products and Categories for details. More than 1,000 tracks from various artists and categories are currently available in the 360 Reality Audio format, and many more are on the way. The 360 Reality Audio content requires a subscription to a compatible online music service.

Sony and Pioneer are two of the most well-regarded car audio manufacturers on the market. Both brands consistently provide customers with high-quality car stereo systems, and if your new speaker, amplifier, or subwoofer is made by either Sony or Pioneer, you know that you are in good hands.

Amazon Music Unlimited has a growing catalog of Spatial Audio songs mastered in Dolby Atmos and 360 Reality Audio from some of the world's biggest artists. Amazon Music Unlimited customers can listen to Spatial Audio through the iOS, Mac, or Android Amazon Music app with any headphones.

Download and use a music streaming service (charged) app that supports 360 Reality Audio on your smartphone or tablet equipped with iOS or Android. By optimizing the sound field and the acoustic feature of headset with the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app, you can enjoy a more realistic sense of reality.

All you need is a smartphone, TIDAL HiFi Plus membership, and a pair of headphones to access 360 Reality Audio content through the TIDAL application.

Some examples of 3D Audio features include Apple's Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos, Sony's 360 Reality Audio and PS5 3D Audio, Dolby Atmos Music, Yamaha's 3D Sound Field, Sennheiser's AMBEO and Creative's Super X-Fi holography technology.

Immersive "Sound" is concerned with height and the audible experience whereas Immersive "Audio" deals with the technology (see Immersive Audio). Compared to the 2D horizontal plane of speakers at ear height, Immersive Sound adds speakers on the wall or in the ceiling to create a true 3D effect.

What is the difference between immersive audio and spatial audio? ›

Immersive environments use 360-degree spaces where users can enjoy 3D content from all directions. Spatial audio enhances interactions in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) spaces with incredible realism. This audio format is a massive improvement from mono and stereo sound.

Spatial Audio is a layer on top of Dolby Atmos that enables an even more immersive listening experience. Not only do you get a multitude of audio channels via Dolby Atmos, but you also get to move around inside this audio space.

When it comes down to the directional quality and benefits, spatial audio definitely beats stereo audio for AR. Adding spatial sound to an AR experience not only makes it feel more real, it also improves the narrative dramatically.

Noise Cancellation and Transparency block noise, but Noise Cancellation blocks all while Transparency lets outside conversation pass to your ear. Spatial Audio creates the surround sound effects. Please continue reading for more details, how these features work and how to use them.

Turn on spatial audio on your iPhone or iPad

Open Control Center on your iPhone or on your iPad. Touch and hold the volume control to turn on spatial audio while you're playing multichannel content or Spatialize Stereo while you're playing two-channel stereo content. This also shows you the status icons.

You can feel immersed by the sound from not only the horizontal direction, but also from the upward direction by working sound modes effectively. This function also works for the 2.0 channel signal such as TV programs.

On the software side of things, as long as an app supports 5.1, 7.1 and/or Atmos, it will work with spatial audio. That already includes apps such as Vudu, HBO Go, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.

You can watch Netflix in high-quality audio on most titles available with 5.1 surround sound or Dolby Atmos.

Is 360 audio surround sound? ›

With 360 Reality Audio, music surrounds and immerses you, with different sounds materializing from points all around your head. In Stereo, sounds are sourced from just two speakers.

Currently, the content that supports spatial audio includes the fourth season of “Stranger Things,” “The Adam Project,” “Red Notice,” “The Witcher,” “Locke & Key,” among others. For those who don't know, spatial audio is designed to provide theater-like sound from a movie or TV show.

In any event, Sony's 360 Reality Audio adds a new dimension to streaming audio on headphones; in fact, it's worth getting a subscription to Tidal, Deezer, or Nugs just to hear it. I strongly recommend giving it a long listen.

With Amazon Music Unlimited , deezer, nugs.net, and Tidal smartphone apps and compatible subscription, enjoy 360 Reality Audio with compatible speakers. *Activation of Chromecast built-in is required to listen on Deezer and nugs.net.

As of April 2022, 3D audio for speakers is not as good as the headset 3d audio. Speaker 3d audio sounds a thinner and not as accurate compared to the headset experience. Most people trying out speaker 3d audio seem to report similar issues, with most of them turning it off in favour of regular audio.

It all depends on the design and the quality of the components. But what is beyond question is that most 360-degree speakers have been built for convenience first and quality second. That's not to say that many of them are not extremely good – but they can never be a match for speakers many times their size.

Just like ordinary reality, VR is not an exclusively visual experience – it is multi-sensory including the auditory sense, the sense of touch, and in rare cases even the olfactory and gustatory senses (for smelling and tasting). Sound is a very important part of this multi-sensory unity.

What is the best audio format for sound quality? A lossless audio file format is the best format for sound quality. These include FLAC, WAV, or AIFF. These types of files are considered “hi-res” because they are better or equal to CD-quality.

What has the best audio quality? ›

What is the best audio format for sound quality? The best audio formats for sound quality are uncompressed or lossless compression files—think WAV, FLAC, and M4A. That's because these formats retain the original sound quality, though you'll have to put up with the fact these files will be large.

The Oculus Quest 2 has its own built-in rear-firing speakers, but these suffer from a bit of sound bleed, meaning people around you will hear what you're playing.

A review published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2020 analyzed studies that had evaluated the effectiveness of VR exercise and concluded that VR workouts helped improve physical fitness, muscle strength, and balance.

Wilmot's experiment demonstrates that using VR headsets for hours at a time and for days on end probably won't have any long-lasting impacts.