Immersive and intelligent systems

Object-based rendering is built on that networked foundation. L-Acoustics L-ISAL-AcousticsL-ISA2016Object-based mixing and multi-array reproduction designed for localization, width, distance, and immersion.Open profile → running on the L-ISA Processor IIL-AcousticsL-ISA Processor II2021L-ISA Processor II, released in 2021, processes up to 96 objects with pan, width, distance and elevation and renders to up to 128 outputs over Milan-AVB and MADI, with output licences of 16, 32, 64 or 128 on the same hardware.Open profile →, d&b Soundscaped&b audiotechnikSoundscapeFebruary 2018A DS100-based platform for source-oriented reinforcement and room-emulation functions.Open profile → on the DS100/DS110 engined&b audiotechnikDS110 Signal Engine2020sThe d&b DS110 succeeds the DS100 as the Soundscape engine: a Dante matrix with level and delay at every crosspoint, hosting En-Scene, which positions up to 128 objects over up to 64 loudspeakers.Open profile →, Meyer Spacemap GoMeyer SoundSpacemap GoOctober 2020A spatial sound design and mixing tool operating through GALAXY processors.Open profile → on GALAXY processors, TiMax SoundHubOut BoardTiMax SoundHub2000sTiMax SoundHub uses delay-panning, the precedence effect, across a multichannel rig so sound appears to come from performers wherever listeners sit. Its matrix sets delay at every crosspoint, scales from 16×16 to 64×64 and includes playback and show control.Open profile →, Astro SARA IIAstro Spatial AudioSARA II2017SARA II is a Linux-based rendering engine using Adaptive Wave Field Synthesis developed with Fraunhofer IDMT, rendering 64 objects to up to 128 outputs over MADI with under 5 ms latency. It debuted at ISE 2017.Open profile → and SPAT RevolutionFLUX:: ImmersiveSPAT Revolution2017SPAT Revolution is a real-time spatial renderer built on IRCAM's Spat library. It positions sources in a virtual room and renders to almost any loudspeaker layout or to binaural headphones.Open profile → place each source in space. Several arrays spread across the stage let a voice appear to come from where the singer stands.

L-Acoustics L-ISA© L-Acoustics; photographer not credited · Copyright retained by the original rights holder; reproduced for identification and historical commentary (fair use). Reuse permission not established.L-Acoustics L-ISA Processor II© L-Acoustics · © L-Acoustics, used for identification and historical commentaryd&b audiotechnik Soundscape© d&b audiotechnik · © d&b audiotechnik, used for identification and historical commentaryd&b audiotechnik DS110 Signal Engine© d&b audiotechnik · © d&b audiotechnik, used for identification and historical commentaryMeyer Sound Spacemap Go© Meyer Sound Laboratories, Inc.; photographer not credited · Copyright retained by the original rights holder; reproduced for identification and historical commentary (fair use). Reuse permission not established.Out Board TiMax SoundHub© TiMax / Out Board · © TiMax / Out Board, used for identification and historical commentaryAstro Spatial Audio SARA II© Astro Spatial Audio · © Astro Spatial Audio, used for identification and historical commentaryFLUX:: Immersive SPAT Revolution© FLUX:: Immersive · © FLUX:: Immersive, used for identification and historical commentary

Tracking closes the loop between performer and renderer. Stagetracker IITTAStagetracker II2019Stagetracker II locates performers wearing radio Tags using RadioEye sensors around the stage and sends positions to spatial audio renderers, lighting and media servers. A typical theatre uses three sensors.Open profile → and BlackTrax feed position data so objects follow performers automatically. Wireless systems such as Shure Axient DigitalShureAxient Digital2016Shure Axient Digital is the company's flagship digital wireless platform, including AD4D and ADX5D receivers, transmitters and an IEM system. It offers frequency diversity, interference detection, ShowLink remote control of transmitters and AES-256 encryption.Open profile →, Sennheiser Digital 6000SennheiserDigital 60002016Sennheiser Digital 6000 is a two-channel digital wireless system with intermodulation-free transmission on an equidistant grid; its Link Density mode allows up to five links per MHz. It is compatible with Digital 9000 and supports AES-256 encryption.Open profile → and Wisycom MTK952WisycomMTK952 IEM transmitter2010sThe Wisycom MTK952 is a dual UHF transmitter tuning across 470–800 MHz with Direct Digital Synthesis, offering mono, stereo or intercom modulation, a 40-bit DSP and an optional master/slave mode for same-frequency coverage networks.Open profile → in-ears deliver those performers’ signals and mixes reliably in crowded spectrum.

TTA Stagetracker II© TTA / Martin Audio · © TTA / Martin Audio, used for identification and historical commentaryShure Axient Digital© Shure · © Shure, used for identification and historical commentarySennheiser Digital 6000© Sennheiser · © SennheiserWisycom MTK952 IEM transmitter© Wisycom · © Wisycom; used for identification and historical commentary

Digital coverage control developed alongside spatial mixing, but does a different job. Earlier architectural columns such as Renkus-Heinz Iconyx and Intellivox steered sound toward listeners instead of reflective surfaces. Martin Audio MLA brought multi-cell optimisation to concert-scale arrays. These systems change where loudspeaker energy goes; an object renderer changes where a musical source is perceived.

EAW’s AnyaEAWAnya2013 prototype deployments; documented production use by 2014Anya replaced the familiar curved concert-array hang with straight columns and individually processed drivers. Coverage could be changed in software after the rig was flown, making audience shape, reflections and offsite noise active system-design variables.Open profile → took that idea onto the concert road in 2013. Its columns hang straight rather than forming a mechanically splayed curve; each of a module’s 22 drivers has its own processing and amplification, allowing Resolution software to reshape coverage after the rig is flown. Dave Rat valued changing coverage during a performance to address neighbourhood noise and distant reflections. The smaller AnnaEAWAnnaAdaptive-array generation; precise launch date not established hereAnna carries EAW's Adaptive Performance approach into a smaller module than Anya. Rather than treating each enclosure as one processing channel, Resolution 2 shapes the total array response through independent control of its drivers.Open profile → carries the same adaptive approach into a 14-driver module. Robert Scovill selected a 54-module Anya system for Tom Petty’s 2014 tour: the excitement was not just a new cabinet, but a different way to adapt one rig to successive venues.

EAW Anya© Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) · © Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW); used for identification and historical commentaryEAW Anna© Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW) · © Eastern Acoustic Works (EAW); used for identification and historical commentary

HOLOPLOT’s X1 Matrix ArrayHOLOPLOTMatrix ArrayX1 launched May 2021A many-driver platform using digital control to form and steer sound beams.Open profile → adds a dense two-dimensional driver matrix, 3D Audio-Beamforming and Wave Field Synthesis. At Sphere in Las Vegas, opened to concert audiences with U2 in September 2023, the loudspeakers are largely hidden behind the LED media surface. Sound on Sound’s January 2024 account reported 1,534 fixed and 300 mobile X1 modules and 167,000 individual drivers; HOLOPLOT’s case study separately gives 1,578 modules. Those differing reported counts are retained as source-specific figures, not silently combined into a supposedly exact inventory.

HOLOPLOT Matrix Array© HOLOPLOT GmbH · © HOLOPLOT GmbH; used for identification and historical commentary

Sphere made the musical consequence audible. The Edge described quiet passages carrying with a clarity unavailable in a stadium; U2’s engineer Joe O’Herlihy saw a long-awaited step forward, while the production used surround effects selectively rather than continuously. The Eagles later illustrated a different approach: Tom Evans described routing his SSL Live L550 Plus console’s 64 aux sends to 42 zones around and above the audience, with placement automated song by song. Beam control supplies coverage; the engineer still decides what to place, where and when.

HOLOPLOT’s X2 extends the matrix-array approach to other installed applications. Conventional concert arrays such as Meyer PANTHERMeyer SoundPANTHERSee documented chronologyCatalogued as a current spatial or intelligent live-sound platform; its full evidence file is being expanded from primary and trade sources.Open profile →, KARA IIL-AcousticsKARA IIJanuary 2020The 2020 KARA revision added four Panflex directivity settings while retaining the established enclosure footprint.Open profile →, d&b GSLd&b audiotechnikGSL SystemApril 2018The first large-format member of d&b's SL-Series, designed to control directivity through the low and mid frequencies.Open profile → and KSLd&b audiotechnikKSL/SL-Series cardioid array2019d&b's KSL System, announced for NAMM 2019, is the smaller sibling of the GSL: KSL8 and KSL12 cabinets with KSL-SUB and KSL-GSUB, designed for broadband directivity control, used with ArrayCalc and NoizCalc.Open profile → instead combine different improvements in weight, output or directivity: Panflex on KARA II is a mechanical horizontal-coverage adjustment, whereas SL-Series processing and driver layout provide broadband rear rejection. Neither feature should be confused with Anya’s adaptive coverage or a matrix array’s multiple beams.

Meyer Sound PANTHER© Meyer Sound · © Meyer Sound, used for identification and historical commentaryL-Acoustics KARA II© L-Acoustics · © L-Acoustics, used for identification and historical commentaryd&b audiotechnik GSL System© d&b audiotechnik · © d&b audiotechnik, used for identification and historical commentaryd&b audiotechnik KSL/SL-Series cardioid array© d&b audiotechnik · © d&b audiotechnik, used for identification and historical commentary

At front of house, consoles such as the DiGiCo Quantum 7DiGiCoQuantum 72018A 2018 processing-engine upgrade that expanded the SD7 platform with Quantum processing and nodal control.Open profile →, Quantum 852DiGiCoQuantum 8522023The DiGiCo Quantum 852 is a dual-engine console with 384 processed inputs, 192 busses, 52 faders and three 21.3-inch touchscreens, built on five seventh-generation FPGAs.Open profile → and SSL L650Solid State LogicLive L6502021The SSL Live L650, announced in November 2021 with Live V5 software, is SSL's largest live console. V5 added scalable Plus Processing Packs and control of Meyer Spacemap Go and Shure wireless from the console.Open profile → now send object metadata alongside audio. Waves SuperRackWavesSuperRack SoundGrid2010sSuperRack SoundGrid hosts Waves plug-ins for live consoles on external SoundGrid DSP servers, with up to 64 stereo racks and up to four active plus four redundant servers.Open profile → and DirectOut PRODIGY.MPDirectOutPRODIGY.MP2020sDirectOut's PRODIGY.MP is a modular processor with up to 416 inputs and 420 outputs, FPGA matrix mixers and processing channels, hosting two network modules at once among RAVENNA/AES67, Dante, SoundGrid and AVB/Milan.Open profile → handle processing and routing between formats. The likely future is hybrid: conventional arrays for efficient coverage, spatial rendering for localisation, and more automated optimisation under human artistic control.

DiGiCo Quantum 7© DiGiCo; photographer not credited · Copyright retained by the original rights holder; reproduced for identification and historical commentary (fair use). Reuse permission not established.DiGiCo Quantum 852TurnOnTheNight · CC BY-SA 4.0Solid State Logic Live L650© Solid State Logic · © Solid State Logic, used for identification and historical commentaryWaves SuperRack SoundGrid© Waves Audio · Copyright retained by the original rights holder; reproduced for identification and historical commentary (fair use). Reuse permission not established.DirectOut PRODIGY.MP© DirectOut · © DirectOut, used for identification and historical commentary

Kennedy's FOH survey describes the 2020s as the decade of compact full-range arrays and three-dimensional beam shaping. L-Acoustics' K3 (2020) filled the gap between small arrays and stadium rigs; d&b's XSL (2021) brought GSL-style cardioid control to mid-size venues. HOLOPLOT's X1 Matrix ArrayHOLOPLOTMatrix ArrayX1 launched May 2021A many-driver platform using digital control to form and steer sound beams.Open profile →, with hundreds or thousands of individually driven elements, drew venues including Sphere and Radio City Music Hall, and its 2023 X2 scaled the approach down for discreet architectural placement. In February 2023 L-Acoustics introduced the L Series, whose L2/L20 progressive-angle elements replace four K2s; for 2026 the company launched the L1 Series as its new flagship, while Meyer Sound launched TIGRA with the 1800-LFC, bringing onboard power, GEN-1 processing and Milan connectivity to compact enclosures.

HOLOPLOT Matrix Array© HOLOPLOT GmbH · © HOLOPLOT GmbH; used for identification and historical commentary

L-Acoustics frames this shift as a return rather than a novelty. In "From Immersive to Mono and Back" (2024), Tim Boot of the company's Art of Sound journal, drawing on David Byrne's TED talk "How Architecture Helped Music Evolve", argues that music was always shaped by the space it was played in: the reverberant Gothic cathedral favoured slow, harmonious music written for that particular building. A century of mono reproduction, he argues, squeezed music into a single channel, forcing simpler arrangements built for clarity. On this view stereo, surround and now 3D audio give performers back the sense of space and depth once supplied by architecture, so that the system, not only the room, becomes part of the venue. Boot's practical conclusion is that new work should be created specifically for the immersive medium rather than adapted to it.