AES Europe 2026

Immersive music is at a critical point in its development.
While production tools, workflows, and distribution models have begun to stabilise, the market remains fragile, and long-term adoption is far from guaranteed.

New immersive audio formats are now entering a field where creators, labels, and platforms have only recently started to commit resources and build confidence. This raises a fundamental question: does the introduction of additional formats strengthen immersive music, or does it increase uncertainty at a time when the market can least afford it?

This panel-based workshop focuses on immersive audio formats for music and explores whether current challenges are best addressed through new formats, or through innovation and improvement within existing ones.

Topics for discussion include:
- What are the most pressing problems facing immersive music today?
- Do emerging formats solve these problems, or risk fragmenting production, distribution, and listening experiences?
- How does format uncertainty affect investment, release strategies, and creative willingness, especially in smaller markets?
- What are the potential consequences if industry stakeholders decide that immersive music is too complex or too risky to prioritise?
- How do issues such as translation between loudspeaker-based and headphone listening fit into this broader picture?

The session is designed as an open, moderated discussion with panelists from production, research, mastering, education, and technology development.

Headphones have become the dominant device for music
playback, and their design appears to have reached a
certain level of technical maturity. This workshop presents
an overview of the current state of the art in headphone
design and examines potential directions for future
technological development, addressing both acoustic
aspects—including transducer design—and signal-processing
approaches.

The workshop establishes a common foundation by introducing
the fundamentals of headphone acoustics and design
principles, together with a brief overview of the
historical development of headphones and the main headphone
types in use today.

Based on this foundation, the workshop addresses current
challenges and future development potential in headphone
technology, including:
• Transducer and acoustic development potential: materials,
design methodologies and simulation techniques, and
advances in measurement technology
• Characteristics of a high-quality headphone: What
differentiates an excellent headphone from a good one? To
what extent can headphone performance be characterized
using current measurement techniques, and what additional
metrics, target criteria, or perceptual considerations may
be required? What is the role of mechanical quality?
• Signal processing potential: from advanced noise
cancellation and augmented hearing to spatial audio
processing
• Challenges in realistic spatial reproduction: interaction
between auditory and visual environments
• Emerging wireless technologies: technologies such as UWB
and Bluetooth 6 offer not only increased bandwidth and
reduced latency but also the capability to localize the
playback device. What are the implications for conventional
headphone performance and for spatial audio applications?
• Changes in studio workflows: professional practice has
evolved from loudspeakers as the primary monitoring tools,
with headphones mainly used for detailed analysis, toward
headphones playing a central role in the early stages of
recording and mixing. What are the consequences of this
shift for headphone design and signal processing?
• Technically feasible but not yet commercialized
solutions: advanced headphone concepts that are achievable
with current technology but have not yet been adopted due
to economic or practical constraints

Streaming of immersive audio is known to western audiences
almost exclusively in the object-based format, Atmos,
developed by Dolby and employing lossy codecs to limit bit
rates. Other object-based formats like Sony 360 have had
limited success, and until recently there were no channel
based streamed versions. But this situation is changing,
as it has already done in Japan.

Responding to growing interest in very high quality
immersive music for both on-demand streaming and live
broadcast, two new services are now active that offer,
first, channel-based audio and second, audio streamed in
high res PCM. Binaural mixes, a range of PCM formats and
video are variously included, with extensions to portables,
loudspeakers, and home theater.

This workshop provides a forum for discussion of both the
genuine promise and the challenges in these new
initiatives. Included are the advantages of high
resolution over lossy; channel-based versus object-based;
the degree of adoption of transducers for multichannel;
adaptive bit rates; data sources; and the Japanese
approach; amongst others.

Eclipsa Audio, based on the Immersive Audio Model and
Format (IAMF) specification developed by members of the
Alliance for Open Media, represents an open and
royalty-free approach to immersive audio creation and
delivery. Eclipsa Audio provides a growing ecosystem for
producing and distributing spatial audio content, with
hardware integration and streaming platform support,
including YouTube, actively being rolled out. This panel
brings together practitioners, researchers, and engineers
directly involved in the development of IAMF and Eclipsa
Audio to inform the audio engineering community about the
current state of the format and its evolving toolkit.
Presenters will provide an overview of the specification's
design principles, discuss the collaborative research and
development effort behind the Open Audio Renderer (OAR) and
Open Audio Codec (OAC), introduce the content creation
tools currently available within the Eclipsa Audio
ecosystem, and propose practical workflows for immersive
audio production and delivery. The session will include
presentations followed by an open discussion addressing
format interoperability, integration with existing
production environments, listener experience
considerations, and future directions for development.
Audience participation is encouraged.

As spatial audio moves to a consumer standard, the demand
for sophisticated design frameworks has never been higher.
This panel brings together key contributors from the
recently published "Immersive Sound Volume II: The Design
and Practice of Binaural and Multi-Channel Experiences" to
bridge the gap between theoretical research and real-world
production. The session will explore the recent and
developing trends and practices of immersive audio,
focusing on the core design principles that define modern
binaural and multi-channel workflows. Panelists will
discuss themes from the text, including current guiding
principles and system design, and the creative practice of
building immersive sound experiences. Through a mix of case
studies and technical perspectives, the authors will
provide insights into a roadmap for engineers and creators
looking to master the immersive soundstage.

Join leaders in immersive audio who work with affinity
groups: women and miniorities who are building social
capital in audio in unexpected ways. Following the
"Credibilitizing" framework proposed by Dr Leslie
Gaston-Bird, the panel discussions how role models,
networking, and the right kind of mentoring opportunities
are helping people from underrepresented groups upskill,
innovate, and find new purpose and career pathways in
immersive audio.

Binaural audio delivered over headphones is currently the
most widely used method for experiencing immersive sound.
However, significant challenges remain in achieving the
highest possible quality of immersive listening through
current binaural delivery systems. Numerous technical
factors influence the listening experience, including the
personalisation of head-related transfer functions (HRTFs),
room simulation, head tracking, headphone type,
equalisation, etc. Beyond these technical considerations,
however, content types, production practices, and user
expectations and preferences also play critical roles in
shaping perceptual outcomes. Binaural audio is often
treated primarily as a post-processing technique for
simulating loudspeaker reproduction. Yet binaural
approaches also offer substantial creative opportunities
when considered from the earliest stages of content
production. This panel workshop will discuss these topics,
bringing together perspectives from creative practice,
research and development. The session will explore how
immersive listening experiences can be more effectively
designed, produced, and evaluated using binaural audio
technologies.

Dynamic range controllers, or compressors, have long been
central to music production. The loudness standards now
adopted by major streaming platforms have further
heightened the importance of skilled and intentional
compression in both mixing and mastering. Pop and rock
productions with extremely limited dynamic range are
routinely attenuated during playback, while highly dynamic
material—such as classical orchestral works and film
scores—risks gain and possibly undesirable soft clipping
being applied when delivered masters are normalized.
This panel will address best practices for the use of
compression across a wide range of applications, from
individual instruments to full-program material, in both
stereo and immersive formats. Panelists will present
established methodologies alongside innovative techniques
drawn from their current professional workflows. Different
types of compression will be examined and compared,
including their application in mastering for vinyl release.
Audience engagement is an integral component of the
workshop, and ample time will be reserved for questions and
discussion with conference attendees.