A Hardware-Software Toolkit for Exploring and Learning Spatial Sound

Spatial sound is a technological frontier for music, performing arts, cinema, home entertainment, games, corporate and museum installation, and servicescape i.e. environment design in commercial spaces such as restaurants and shops.Good quality listening is central to learning sound technologies. Currently, undergraduate students at the School of Create Media (SCM) mostly focus on content creation using ready-made tools (e.g. digital audio workstations, fixed studio setups, instruments…) and they rely far too much on cheap earbuds and headphones. This low-quality listening equipment is inadequate to building their understanding of sound perception and cognition, and limits their creative imagination when it comes to designing spatial sound, both in physical and virtual environments.