We’ve always embraced new technologies and innovation, and in 2018 we started experimenting with immersive audio in large live spaces. There was a push in the industry for more immersive audio but there was a problem: there simply wasn’t enough immersive content to go around.
To bridge this gap, we began experimenting with a real-time server that could take that stereo track and expand it into a fully immersive environment in real time.
Existing upmixers felt like a compromise, they used artificial reverb or phase-shifting that "smeared" the original mix. If we were going to bring immersive audio to the masses, it had to sound authentic, not processed.
Product images are for illustrative purposes only and may differ from the actual product.
Tomorrowland festival
We developed the RISE® algorithm (Realtime Immersive Stereo Expansion) as our answer. Instead of adding effects, it intelligently redistributes the existing elements of a mix into a 3D field with near-zero latency.
We tested it at major festivals like Tomorrowland, refining it in the most demanding environments.
Today, our UPMIX ENGINE is the result of that journey.
When the pandemic hit and we were stuck in our homes, we dreamed of bringing that unique immersive audio from live events into people’s everyday lives. The vision of transforming this sound experience into a pair of headphones seemed almost too simple as an idea, but the journey to make this happen was quite the opposite.
Product images are for illustrative purposes only and may differ from the actual product.
However, the idea got stuck in our heads and became almost a daily obsession, with us spending day and night in our home studio. Our first multi-driver prototype wasn't pretty—we called it our ‘Frankenstein.’ But it proved our theory: our approach offered better localization than any simulated technology on the market.
It took five more years of refining drivers and testing spatial accuracy to develop Acoustic Image Mapping. Unlike other tools that rely on generic simulations, our technology delivers true spatial fidelity by using the listener’s own ear shape instead of HRTF approximations.
Today, the Areal SR1 is the result of countless iterations and field tests with the world’s best engineers.
Today we’re still on a mission to make immersive audio accessible through products with intuitive, streamlined workflows, made to excel in environments scaling from the epic to the everyday.
What if every audience could enjoy spatial audio, even with regular stereo content?
What if immersive content could be created anywhere?
We love to tackle the big questions and make the answers real.
Belgium is fast becoming a European pro audio powerhouse, and nowhere more so than our HQ at Lab of Tomorrow in Boom, where we share good coffee and fresh ideas with fellow entertainment technology pioneers.