SENNHEISER’S UWE CREMERING
Uwe Cremering is Director of AMBEO Immersive Audio at Sennheiser, overseeing not only the soundbar but Sennheiser’s plans for VR, AR, sports broadcasting and more. We asked him everything at once...
Having helmed the development of Sennheiser’s AMBEO listening experience, Herr Cremering is the man to answer all our awkward questions.
SOUND+IMAGE (JEZ FORD): When I first came into contact with AMBEO it was nine-channel music recording, and then it was the likes of the microphone and smart headset and stuff. So I think there’s a little confusion over what AMBEO actually is. What is it? UWE CREMERING: AMBEO actually is a listening experience. It’s not a codec, it is not a dedicated product line, so at the end, it’s a kind of listening experience. And I can say this because I developed the entire AMBEO journey from five, six years ago. We saw immersive audio as a kind of trend in the market and we had a set of meetings with the EMB (executive management board) and the supervisory board and we decided strategically that we will invest in 3D audio technology. We hired 10 people who do nothing else than AMBEO. And of course, if we develop a soundbar, we have to integrate more people.
And at that point of time, it was not clear for us what we would do. Do we invest in a kind of codec like Dolby or MPEG-H? Or do we invest in a dedicated product line, like speakers or speaker-phones. And so we identified five business areas where we would like to be active in the future. There’s sports broadcast, augmented reality, virtual reality, listening, and 3D recording. And
whenever we do this, we come from a holistic point of view. So, we would like to cover the entire chain from the recording to the mixing to the listening part. And in the future you will learn more about our approach because we are investing more in mixing, we bought some companies, we’ll come up with some products — but this is our intention, when it comes to products, we look from a holistic point of view on that.
And during the last couple of years, it became more and more obvious that the codecs on the market, like Dolby Atmos and MPEG-H, are strong enough. Currently, there is no need to invest in a new codec.
JF: There’s a sudden rush on MPEG-H, isn’t there — it sat very quietly for a while and then it’s suddenly leapt up.
UC: Exactly. So when we developed the soundbar, we analysed MPEG-H. And a lot of people told me, Uwe, MPEG-H is not needed in the market. But there are so many benefits when it comes to object-based audio, you can do a lot of things with it. And that is the reason why, for example, China and South Korea decided that MPEG-H is an industry standard. Of course, Dolby might have more power in the market, in marketing and more lawyers, but for our understanding there is a kind of future for MPEG-H as well. That’s the reason why in the early stage, we said OK, if we do a soundbar then MPEG-H must be included. And also we decided we shouldn’t invest in a codec because both codecs are good enough, and this is not our intention.
So we said, OK, if it comes to a listening experience here, what is really needed to have this listening experience? And we said, OK what we have to make sure is that whatever we understand about 3D, it’s not surround sound, but it needs the kind of second level of audio information — whatever we do is actually this second level of audio information. That’s the reason why at the beginning, we said we have to educate people a bit what 3D sound is... let’s start with a 9.1 system where we have four in the top level, and then five in the bottom level, and this is our understanding, And that’s the reason why… maybe you were at CES?
JF: With the Magic Leap stuff?
UC: Exactly. And that is still today our kind of condition, that we also need some height information. And that when it comes to the recording side, we would like to record the entire 3D environment around you, and not just one layer of information.
Also, from an internal perspective, I can say AMBEO is a kind of multifunctional program, because as with Sennheiser it is split into two areas — one is the consumer part, and one is the microphone part, the pro audio part. And we are, from some kinds of perspective, part of both, perfectly placed. And we have, as I mentioned, 10 dedicated people, people in San Francisco because we need the contact to the Silicon Valley companies like Facebook, like Google, Netflix, for example. We have people in Zurich and we have people in Germany, and this team, again, as a kind of start-up, drives this into different products.
JF: It’s rare that I get to meet somebody that does actually understand the codecs. So can I get a bit of education? What differentiates MPEG-H from Atmos as an object-based format?
UC: OK, so Dolby is channel-based, yes?.
JF: I thought it was a mix of channel and object? UC: There is a bit of object but the main platform is channel-based. And for a lot of purposes, like movies, it is a good platform. But when it comes, for example, to sports events, where these days you have a lot of possibilities in Germany, for example, you have the referee, you have the ball, you have the different players. And there’s a trend that that listeners or viewers of football games want to be closer to the game. Then it’s easier to use this kind of technology, because if you say OK, the referee is one element, the stadium speaker is one element. The playground is bigger for you. Of course there’s also the commercial side and I’m kind of neutral so I don’t want to want to push any kind of codec...
JF: Of course, I’m just interested in the differences. But MPEG-H is purely objectbased? So how does it handle a sound field, if you’ve got an ambience or if you’ve got a reverb side to it, things which are fundamentally not objects?
UC: Yes... OK, perhaps I can connect you to someone from Fraunhofer, I don’t want to give you a wrong reason...
JF: Sure — I don’t know, so if I meet somebody who understands a lot of it, I ask! OK, so the soundbar itself. So Sennheiser has not traditionally been a speaker company, but you have Neumann, and I gather Neumann was involved in the drivers — how much general interaction was there between Sennheiser and Neumann on this? UC: Yes, very strong. You’re right, this is the first time we’ve developed home audio speakers. And from a strategic perspective we said, OK, do we want to go into this market? Because there are some players in the market, it’s new for us, we have to make sure how do we learn, how do we scale up and so on. But we decided we want to do it. And along with this decision, we are a family-driven
“A lot of people told me, Uwe, MPEG-H is not needed in the market. But there are so many benefits when it comes to object-based audio, you can do a lot of things with it. And that’s the reason why China and South Korea decided that MPEG-H is an industry standard.”
company, and as a family stands behind it, whatever we do, we have to come from a top-level approach. So we have Professor Sennheiser, and I can’t say, ‘Professor, we’ll go with a €200 soundbar’. There is always a commitment. And he said, OK make sure that we are the best.
JF: Nice thing to hear.
UC: Yes but that’s his approach, he wants to be proud of it. He says ‘Uwe, you will write my name on the product, so make sure that we are the best in that! And then later on you can come with some daughters and sons, but make sure that we start from that top gear approach’.
And then of course, we made a kind of team and we invited the Neumann guys, because what we have in Sennheiser — and I’m proud that we have this — we have sound engineers on the one side who come from a science perspective, but we have also tone-meisters, yes? Tone-meisters really come with their ears, and sometimes they don’t know what to do and how to do it, and I would say sometimes it’s voodoo! But sometimes they do something and it sounds different.
JF: Great word, tone-meister, I’ve not heard that. UC: Yes we have three or four of them. And indeed, we use the experience we’ve had with studio market, how to do this. And we brought them together.
JF: And some of those are Neumann guys?
UC: Some of the Neumann guys, yes, from the studio experience, we brought them in. Markus Wollf was one of the guys we used from the Neumann team — not for the entire time, but he was on board for eight weeks. And he did a lot of, I don’t know, the voodoo stuff! So we gave him the soundbar when when we we had it 70% ready, and then closed the office — he was working on that with two colleagues and they did some measurements, and they adjusted the drivers. Yeah, and the difference — and I’m not the one with the golden ears, but the difference was really audible also for me, and I was surprised about that.
JF: Gives you hope!
UC: And there was something else Professor Sennheiser said — if we do the soundbar, in the current soundbar market you see two options of soundbar. The one type has artificial 3D, they go down with the bass, you feel it in your stomach, and you hear artificial 3D but the sound is not good.
JF: Indeed. And they’re never musical.
UC: Exactly. Or you have speaker systems which are good from an audiophile perspective and sound good. And he said ‘Make sure that we have both, find the balance that we have both.’ So that’s the reason that the soundbar is bulky, of course. JF: Well yes, and that’s my next question.
UC: You know, we need volume. We invested a lot of money in drivers and amplifiers in the soundbar, and that’s also the reason why the soundbar is high priced, because what’s in this soundbar is state-of the art technology and we need that for audiophile use. And so we did make sure that we covered both, that we don’t have just a soundbar which has artificial 3D sound but doesn’t sound cool, because we are an audiophile company, and people who have listened to, I don’t know, the HD 800, they have expectations towards the soundbar.
JF: Well, high five on that.
UC: And that’s why we tried to find the balance. And in an early phase, we invited a lot of people with good ears — we went to to Skywalker Studios in the United States, Abbey Road Studios, and we invited some artists, so say two weeks ago, Joey from Manowar — it’s a heavy metal band, you might laugh about that, but Joey is a Doctor of Music, so he has really good ears. And he said, OK, this is really a proof point. And that’s why we are a bit proud because we say OK, we found a way to have that balance; the soundbar can also be used as a high-end audiophile sound system.
JF: Great. So a lot of soundbars go with a subwoofer and smaller soundbar — how early was that solution rejected?
UC: I would say two years ago. We said, OK, if we do something, then we should aim that we can put everything in one box. We saw some other systems in the market with back speakers and subwoofer, but this was actually something which came from the Neumann guys, they said Uwe trust us, we will find a solution where we do not need a subwoofer, because we can go down to 30Hz with the soundbar, which is quite deep. Of course, if you have a subwoofer at home, you can connect it — but it’s not needed. And this was an early beginning where we said, OK, we have to differentiate this from the market, so we have to make sure that we do not need anything else.
JF: And you calibrate it using the mike on a stick, how does that work?
UC: To calibrate, we have to understand where reflection areas are, because the soundbar uses reflection areas as virtual speakers. And this is easy. It sends out a signal, listens — how long does it take to get the echo back? And then the drivers will be calibrated, we use the reflection areas above, on the left and right side, for reflections; that’s the principle behind that.
JF: So I was interested to hear you say the sports thing is a focus, because when I heard the AMBEO bar in Berlin, the sports demonstration was amazing, one of the most impressive things. So are you managing to get that into the industry? Because to deliver that, obviously, you’ve got to have the recording side too.
UC: Sports is very interesting, because actually, even before we developed the soundbar, three years ago, we were meeting all the sports broadcasters, and they told us that when it comes to sports content, video is getting to an end because the users do not understand, OK, what’s the difference between 4K, 8K, 16K.
JF: It’s high frame rate we want for sports, anyway, not resolution.
UC: Well they told us, Uwe, the main drivers will be acoustic in the future. And they showed
me some service they made, we spoke with Sky sports broadcasters, for example, the guys who do the field recordings, they told us there is one big trend. Viewers would like to get closer to the football or tennis, whatever — they lost that a bit, because if you if you watch football these days, you get a bit of crowd noise and you have the moderator, the speaker — that’s it, what you hear, you do not hear anything from the field. But with the possibilities of object-based audio, you can collect everything from the field.
And we said, OK, what we can do is we can place 100 spot mikes around the field, and collect all this audio. But 100 microphones is challenging, it’s not possible — but maybe we can do it differently. And there are some systems in the market. One is called ChyronHego. They have the rights to measure all the stadiums and they can visually follow every segment. So when you see, for example, in football games, this player has run 10 kilometres — this is based on their data. And what they have developed in the last couple of years is a system that they can follow all the players, the referee, the ball — they know exactly where the ball is.
So we said Ok, let’s take this data, and let’s work on microphone arrays. The microphone works like this: you have 30 capsules, and every capsule is a spot microphone. And we open just the spot microphones required based on the data. We know where the ball is, because we have the metadata. We know how to work with latency, and now we can follow the ball. We developed the prototype, and this prototype is on a test field for the last three months on football games.
Because that is the main benefit for us. We have this technology, we have the knowledge and now we can come from both sides. We can say OK, let’s support the broadcaster and the gear, we would like to sell the microphone technology, and they are quite happy because they said OK, then we do not have to open something, because if you guys help us to know where the ball is, and also with the understanding that more and more productions won’t be produced actually within the stadiums any more, so it could be that there is a football game in Germany and the guy who is doing the final monitoring is sitting in Australia — that is a second trend.
And we invested money and energy and we bought also some technologies for that, so we will come up with a kind of array microphone technology. And that means that at the end, you have to place four array microphones in the stadium and this covers all the object-based audio sound.
JF: Gotcha. And when you say capsules and arrays, these aren’t your 3D AMBEO microphones?
UC: No it’s completely different, it’s small spot microphone capsules.
JF: Because it’s got to be pretty focused to do that.
UC: Exactly, that’s the principle. And we understand, OK, the ball is here, so we have to open this microphone, close the other ones. And once again, later, of course, we have to close another one.
JF: But you’ve really got to tackle latency pretty square on, because you’re getting the data from the one company, and you’ve got to translate that into positional information before they move...
UC: Yes, but if you have four things and a bit of intelligence inside, it is possible. And we got the first results and at the next IBC (International Broadcasting Convention) we will present something, not just with us, we do it together with Dolby, with the broadcasters and with LAWO who does the mixing console...
So we understand, in this 3D audio field it’s not possible to do everything on our own. We have to run into cooperations. That’s why we also do this Magic Leap thing. We know what we can do, but when it comes to 3D audio, there are also some pieces of the puzzle where we have no idea what to do. And that’s why sports broadcast for us is highly interesting.