Tempest 3D AudioTech: How the PS3 5D Audio System Works

If you are an audiophile, know this is not a technical article. Rather, we’re going to be doing a fairly broad overview of what 3D audio is in relation to other more traditional audio settings, and how Sony’s implementation works on the next generation console. The Japanese manufacturer wants to sell us this feature as something exclusive to the next generation, and we’re going to determine if this is actually the case, or rather a simple marketing strategy to try and encourage most audiophiles to buy their console instead of the competition.

What is so-called 3D sound?

Traditional audio reproduction is divided into channels. For example, in the 1960s, when the Beatles began releasing their music recordings, they did so with a single channel sound known as mono. This means that if you listened to these music recordings with headphones, you heard the same thing in the left earphone as in the right.

Today, music is recorded and released in stereo, which means 2-channel audio, so if you listen to music with headphones, you will hear two different audio outputs (in fact, only slightly different), one for the left channel. and one more for the law. This allows musicians and artists to greatly complicate their creations by adjusting what the listener hears to each ear.

Surround sound is simply more channel sound that is often used in 5.1 or 7.1 setups, where five or seven refers to the number of speakers in the setup and one refers to one subwoofer for bass sounds. Although not often used in music, when using television, film, or games, sound is distributed across many different channels. This allows you to have directional sound and feel like you are right in the middle of the action.

3D sound is a rethinking of the idea of ​​channels in sound. Rather than having a series of dedicated speakers outputting sound corresponding to an action on the left side of the screen rather than the right side, 3D audio uses object-based spatial audio to digitally generate sound from many, many separate sources. …

Indeed, instead of, for example, playing a track with the sounds of rain when it rains in a scene, and adjusting the volume of the rain when it approaches or moves away from the sound source, the 3D sound will simulate the sound of rain drops. rain falls in the context of where the user is within the screen world, individually.

How 3D audio works on PS5

First of all, 3D sound does not replace traditional sound and you don’t have to choose between one or the other. These technologies work in concert with each other, so if you listen to sound in stereo using the soundbar under the TV, 3D sound will be output from both channels of the soundbar.

The sound of the Sony 3D Tempest engine on the PS5 is similar to the proprietary hardware accelerated version of Dolby Atmos 3D sound. This software is based on PS5 hardware and over time you will be able to turn it on with the console using whatever audio system you have, whether it be surround sound, stereo or just speakers, as it doesn’t depend on your physical sound system, but channels and sound sources at the software level. However, you should note that this is not yet possible, and although Sony has promised to enable this option in future console updates, it is still not possible.

Currently, 3D audio support on the PS5 is only possible with headphones, although it’s true that you won’t need the official Pulse 3D headphones from this brand. Once turned on, there are several different sound profiles to choose from that personalize the experience, but the level of sound quality that headphones provide usually leaves a lot to be desired even with these settings.

When 3D audio support reaches other devices and becomes more customizable, this technology is likely to have much more adoption. Given the positioning of next-generation 3D audio, it doesn’t make much sense to give up on the quality of a high-end speaker system to experience new technologies on any pair of headphones you have.

So is this real or just marketing?

Unlike tactile feedback and adaptive triggers on the PS5 DualSense controller, 3D audio can redefine the way each player interacts with games, in line with a fundamental new principle: hearing.

While this technology is currently of very limited use (as it is only available in headphones), since developers use 3D sound in games, and Sony is implementing a lot of support for this technology in other sound systems, immersive audio in a PS5 console can be far superior to that. what competitors offer.

It does have a lot of potential to significantly improve gameplay in the future, and the PS5 is ready for that thanks to its hardware acceleration, so this huge amount of additional audio sources doesn’t impact performance. …