Is 360 degree sound a real thing?

Modern living spaces are getting smaller and smaller, and with the advancement of technology, small and easy-to-install all-in-one speakers are becoming more prevalent. There are many advantages of an all-in-one speaker. In addition to convenience, many all-in-one speakers nowadays emphasize a360 sound, which improves the problem of directivity. What exactly is a 360 sound? Is the 360 sound your hear actually gives you a 360 sound experience?

The definition of a sound stage is quite vague. It is generally recognized that a sound stage has at least two elements: width and depth. We would expect an audio speaker/system to provide enough width and depth. Imagine a stage in front of us, and when we hear the music to our ears, the distance between the player on the far right and the player on the far left is the width of the sound stage.

The directivity of an audio speaker usually means that the sound is focused in a certain direction, rather than spread evenly around the room. Most speakers are directional to some extent. The direction of the speaker is the direction of the cone. After all, speakers rely on drivers to produce sound, so directivity can be considered a characteristic of every speaker or acoustic system.

A 360 sound stage is a hardware design that allows the speakers to emit sound as evenly as possible in all directions without " facing” the front of the stereo or listening to the music in a specific place.

Why is it so difficult to achieve both a wide sound stage and a 360 sound simultaneously?

Duomark has tested many speakers and found that speakers with a wide soundstage do not present an even 360 sound stage well, and that using such speakers requires more or less consideration of placement and environment, on the other hand. On the other hand, a non-directional stereo speaker, i.e. a 360 sound, does not provide a wide enough sound stage and is usually suitable in a small place only.

The team came to the following conclusions:

In addition to this, the treble is more directional, and to achieve a 360 sound, the signal produced by the tweeters must be as consistent as possible.

From a technical point of view, it's challenging to achieve a sound that contradicts these two points, and it's only possible with hardware design- Duomark's team used the example of Apple's HomePod, which has seven ultra-small tweeter drivers arranged in a circular pattern, allowing the tweeter to emit sound evenly in all directions.

DUET MK3 uses the best midrange and tweeter drivers from Vifa to achieve a 360 sound stage with an upward-firing design. In addition, most of the all-in-one speakers in the market have only one speaker, with the midrange, tweeter and bass driver crammed into the same space, which does not allow for better sound separation, DUET MK3 is the only dual speaker design in the market, with the bass driver separate, allowing for better sound separation and a wider sound stage.