What is my audience’s experience?
There are two basic types of audience experience when it comes to audio, Egocentric and Ergocentric.
Ergocentric is the type of experience that is shared, common sound sources distributed over an area occupied by the audience; a movie theatre, living room or concert venue for example. The venues are custom designed to provide audience members with the best chance of having a good experience.
Egocentric is a highly personal type of experience, where a single listener is the focus of the experience. This might be delivered via headphones in most common applications. The egocentric experience will be influenced by the individual factors of the human body, and those characteristics will vary person to person and so each person will have a different, if representative, experience of the same content.
The type of audience being targeted can then be a determining factor in how choices are made for a particular experience to be achieved.
There will be many datasets that will point to headphones being 80% of the listening market for music; that will highlight the car as a controlled enough environment as to be a premium listening experience and that listeners do or do not care about quality. I am not going to refute or try to persuade one way or another because I fundamentally do not see that as relevant to my ‘why’ for immersive audio, in and of itself that might indeed be foolhardy, and I am ok with that too.
Immersion brings a completely different and organic experience of somebody else’s why or where. If that is a movie writer/director placing you, the audience member, into a place of fear and discomfort; or a songwriter emoting joy or sorrow to their listener, then immersive audio can transform that moment into something more real and visceral than other mediums.
The how, is secondary at best. There are many opinions about what makes sense in different situations, but the reality is, it is your choice about how it feels best for you and your message.
The guidance available should always be weighed against your answers to the Who, Where and Why questions.