Sony Bows Immersive Audio Ecosystem With Support From Amazon Music HD, 3 Others

Sony announced commercial availability of its immersive audio ecosystem called 360 Reality Audio that encompasses creation, distribution and playback of music content. Based on object-based spatial audio technology, 360 Reality Audio will be available on 1,000 songs late this year from artists including Mark Ronson and Pharrell Williams and via streaming services including Amazon Music HD, Deezer, nugs.net and Tidal, it said. The company's working with Napster to develop a 360 Reality Audio streaming solution for service providers, it said Tuesday, and on the label side, it’s working with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, Live Nation, music distribution services and other music organizations. 360 Reality Audio can be experienced on headphones and wireless speakers from most manufacturers when combined with an Android or iOS smartphone offering participating streaming service apps. Users can also experience the immersive audio technology using select Sony headphones and the company's Headphones Connect app. The app analyzes listeners’ hearing characteristics using a Sony-designed algorithm, it said. Speakers require a Sony decoder; compatible songs can be played back from Amazon Music HD using Echo Studio, Sony said. Sony partnered with platform and chipset providers Qualcomm (see 1903200022), MediaTek and NXP to make the technology usable in future connected devices, it said.