The 3D Future of Sound

New audio technologies could radically change
the way we play games, listen to music and
experience movies

I can’t believe my ears. I’m waving a plain grey cube back and forth around my head, and I could swear the instrumental music I’m hearing is coming from that cube, as if it were a tiny speaker. Brash violins overwhelm my left ear as I bring the cube close to it, and then fade to a more manageable volume as I move it further away. I hold the cube behind me, and it feels like I just turned my back to a string quartet. When I move the cube over my head, my scalp prickles as the soaring string instrumentals play from above. But the cube isn’t actually producing a single sound. I’m hearing the music through headphones, and the moment I take them off the illusion is over — the cube is silent.

I’m standing in a large room in the University of Maryland’s tech incubator building, where the eight-person startup VisiSonics is based. It’s their software trickery that’s fooled my brain into hearing 3D sound over headphones. The grey cube I’m holding is connected to a device that tracks its position as I wave it around. VisiSonics’ RealSpace 3D technology uses spatial data from the tracker to process the music so it sounds as if it is emanating from the cube. This particular demo is just a proof of concept, demonstrating the software’s ability to fool your brain. But the most striking thing about it is how easily it makes me forget that I’m wearing headphones at all.

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