TRULY IMMERSIVE SPATIAL AUDIO
REQUIRES ADVANCED HEADPHONE SPEAKERS
Pierce Hening, acoustic engineer at xMEMS Labs, explains how solid-state
micro speakers are designed to deliver the precision necessary to locate sound in virtual worlds.
A
s a gamer, I appreciate spatial audio — the experience of headphones that can place sound in a 360-degree field around my head.
It makes games more realistic. But as a competitive gamer — someone looking for
every advantage to win — I need more. Often, when trying to defeat competition, it’s not
enough to merely hear, for example, that an enemy is behind me. I need to know at precisely what angle he’s approaching, and from how many degrees above or below me, based on localized sound cues. With today’s spatial audio, however, that requires far more sound precision than current mainstream headphones provide. The software needed for highly localized, immersive
spatial audio — high-performing DSP algorithms and super-efficient audio codecs — are well advanced. The hardware now needs to keep pace. Enter solid-state, MEMS speaker technology. Most headphones today, from earbuds to gaming
headsets, use traditionally assembled, coil-and-magnet dynamic drivers. Some of these drivers are very good (if pricey); many are less so. But all produce audio in a way that can adversely affect sound clarity and precision if not finely engineered. Which may be fine for certain listening situations. However, as spatial audio gains popularity, clarity, precision, and the ability to locate sound in a 3D environment are crucial.
30 | MCV/DEVELOP October/November 2025
Especially for gamers, but also for anyone who wants high-performance audio without breaking the bank. Silicon-based, solid-state MEMS speakers, which are
fabricated like microchips — rather than assembled — deliver the clarity, precision, and localization prized by gamers or anyone immersed in spatial audio experiences, such as virtual reality and other immersive media applications. Here’s why.
SOUND CUES DELIVERED BY PRECISION SPEAKERS In gaming, particularly competitive first-person shooters with many players online at once, precise spatial audio localization offers a significant advantage. Gamers rely heavily on auditory information outside their field of view, such as footsteps or weapon reloads, to make split-second decisions. The proper headphone speakers should help ensure that when a player reacts to a sound cue (e.g., flicking their aim toward a suspected enemy), the perceived location of that sound cue is precise. Such accuracy can mean the difference between winning and losing. And that takes rapid speaker response, precision, and clarity. Traditional dynamic drivers, which rely on a mass-
spring system, tend to introduce mechanical resonances that are not present in an original audio signal, resulting in “colorization” or “muddy” sound, especially in low-cost solutions. This is due in part to the physical
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
