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spatial audio as room practice

Spatial audio belongs in the SoundSol research branch because it sits exactly between sound, architecture, installation, audiovisual performance and technical systems. The serious lane is not generic immersion. It is artists using space itself as musical material.

[01]

space as composition

The useful question is not whether a mix feels immersive. It is whether space becomes part of the musical writing: distance, direction, room response, movement and collective attention as compositional material.

[02]

open systems before black boxes

Dolby Atmos and Apple Spatial Audio matter culturally, but SoundSol should track artist-built formats, open ambisonic workflows, Web Audio, HRTF datasets, room impulse responses and custom speaker systems too.

[03]

site and body matter

Spatial sound is not only headphone rendering. It belongs to rooms, architecture, public installation, dance floors, field recordings, bodies, vibration and the social shape of listening.

[04]

measurement without flattening taste

Datasets and metrics help separate serious work from vague immersive claims. They should support listening, not replace artistic judgement.

what to track

signals for SoundSol

  1. 01artist labs where spatial sound is researched collectively rather than sold as a product feature
  2. 02festival commissions that treat room acoustics, speaker layout or headphone perception as the work itself
  3. 03browser experiments that expose position, panning, convolution, HRTF or scene geometry without requiring a proprietary app
  4. 04venue records that describe the sonic behaviour of a space, not just address and capacity

source trail

06 references
  1. [01]standard · MDN Web DocsMDN WebXR Device APIUseful for future spatial city guides, installation previews and venue specific XR sketches.
  2. [02]tool · Immersive Web Community GroupImmersive Web WebXR SamplesPrototype reference for lightweight installation and space experiments.
  3. [03]paper · arXiv:2405.04471Universal Spatial Audio TranscoderRelevant for installation templates, spatial mixes and venue audio experiments.
  4. [04]paper · SIGGRAPH 2026 Art PaperResonance: Meditative Neural Rhythms as Collective Spatial ExperienceReference for responsive rooms where cognition, acoustic signal, light and architecture become shared spatial experience.
  5. [05]dataset · arXiv:2507.05053The Extended SONICOM HRTF Dataset and Spatial Audio Metrics ToolboxGood reference point for rigorous spatial audio work beyond vague immersive language.
  6. [06]paper · arXiv:2306.08053Quantifying Spatial Audio Quality ImpairmentHelpful for evaluating installation audio, demos and future spatial product claims.