Immersive Audio Academy 12th Edition – 3D Sound in All Flavors
On April 30, 2026 at 18:00 CET (12:00 EDT), the Audio Engineering Society hosts the 12th edition of the Immersive Audio Academy – an online panel that brings the full spectrum of immersive audio production onto a single stage.
Under the title “Immersive Audio in All Flavors,” international experts share how immersive audio is created today across music, broadcast, and emerging media: from studio workflows and distribution pipelines to the creative practice that shapes the field.
What is the Immersive Audio Academy
The Immersive Audio Academy is a free online series by the Audio Engineering Society (AES). Each edition gathers practitioners from around the world for a moderated deep dive into immersive audio – from channel- and object-based mixing to new codecs, hardware ecosystems, and listener experience.
The 12th edition is intentionally broad: Auro-3D, Dolby Atmos, Sony 360 Reality Audio, the open Eclipsa codec, and immersive workflows for VR and XR all share the panel. The goal is not one definitive answer but a clear view of how the different “flavors” of immersive audio are evolving side by side.
What the Panel Covers
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Workflows across formats: How studios produce for Dolby Atmos, Auro-3D, Sony 360 Reality Audio and new open formats today, and where mastering decisions actually make the difference.
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Distribution and codecs: How Eclipsa and other open standards are addressing the question of cross-platform delivery for immersive audio, and what that means for production teams.
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Spatial audio for VR and XR: Head-tracked playback, binaural rendering, and immersive narrative formats outside of music and film.
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Hardware and the listener side: From speaker arrays in immersive rooms to consumer headphones with spatial audio – what the production side has to plan for, and what is hype versus practice.
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Open questions for the field: Tooling fragmentation, training, and how immersive audio finds its way into productions whose budget and timeline were originally written for stereo.
The Panelists
Hosted by Andrés Mayo, mastering and immersive mixing specialist, with:
- Wilfried Van Baelen – founder of Auro Technologies and Galaxy Studios, one of the architects of Auro-3D.
- Gary Spittle – Sonical, working on the convergence of audio hardware and immersive playback.
- Jani Huoponen – Eclipsa, contributing the perspective of the open immersive audio codec.
- Martin Rieger – VRTonung, bringing the VR and XR side of immersive audio production into the conversation.
Reserve your seat and join the international panel live.
💡 Immersive Audio Academy Special: Spatial Audio for VR and XR
Martin Rieger of VRTonung joins the panel with a focus most immersive audio conversations leave out: spatial audio for VR, XR, and live immersive formats – where the listener is inside the scene, not in front of it.
While much of the immersive audio production world centers on music and cinema, Martin works on projects where audio carries the entire narrative space: 360° film, head-tracked headphone experiences, interactive XR pieces, theatre productions, and walkable installations.
His contribution: how spatial audio behaves once the listener can move and look around, what changes in the mix when the format is interactive, and which workflows actually scale beyond music releases. For an academy that maps the full breadth of immersive audio, this is the perspective that connects studio practice with the formats audiences are starting to encounter outside of stereo or 5.1 environments.
A session for everyone who wants to understand immersive audio in practice – technically grounded, internationally staffed, and with a clear view beyond a single ecosystem.