Your headphones are about to get way more judgmental.
Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg, the German engineer who created the MP3 format in the 1990s, believes we’ve reached the limits of stereo audio quality.
Now leading Brandenburg Labs, he’s developing spatial audio technology that mimics how we naturally hear sounds.
In his eyes (and ears), making audio as immersive as possible is the next logical step.
Audio Quality Is at Its Peak
Dr. Karlheinz Brandenburg believes we’ve taken stereo audio about as far as it can go. But, it’s not because of technology, but because of biology.
“For compression of just two channels, I think we’ve reached the glass ceiling,” Brandenburg said in a recent interview.
“Especially in psychoacoustics—that’s defined mostly by the properties of our ears, of the inner ear—and that’s it.”
Throughout his career, Brandenburg has worked on pushing compression forward, first with MP3, then with AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), which he says offers better performance in many ways. Still, MP3 remains widely compatible and will continue to stick around for that reason.
But as far as audio quality itself? He thinks stereo’s best days are already here. The real frontier now lies beyond two channels, and beyond stereo entirely.
Personalized Auditory Reality Is the Next Frontier
Brandenburg’s team is now working on technology called “Personalized Auditory Reality” (PARty).
He compares these smart headphones to glasses. Ideally, they would be something you can wear all day and improve how you experience the world.
The system will use AI to recognize sounds around you and adapt automatically.
“If we talk about the long-range vision of personalized auditory reality, there we will need AI because the rendering algorithm in the headphone needs to be aware of the room it’s in, recognize the situation,” he said.
“For example, it can say ‘There are some people yelling—I don’t want to hear them.'”
Brandenburg expects these AI-powered “super-hearing” headphones to hit the market within four years. And, he believes they’ll be affordable and sell in the tens of millions, making this technology widely available.
How the Technology Works
The key to Brandenburg’s breakthrough is understanding how humans process sound.
According to him, traditional approaches to spatial audio have missed important aspects of how our brains interpret audio.
“People trying to do [immersive audio] have overlooked some basic ideas about how our brain works,” Brandenburg said.
“Sound changes all the time when I move in a room.”
His technology maps the listener’s space and tracks head movement in all directions, adjusting sounds in real-time.
The system also accounts for room reflections, which Brandenburg says are crucial to how we locate sounds.
“Humans are a little bit like bats—they use these reflections, unconsciously, to do localization of sound and to better understand it,” he explained.
“If you are in an anechoic room, it sounds very strange. So in reality, there are always reflections.”
By combining head tracking with real-time modeling of how sound reflects off surfaces, Brandenburg Labs has developed a new approach that builds on these often-overlooked elements.
While other premium headphones also offer spatial audio and head tracking, Brandenburg’s system focuses on mimicking how the brain naturally interprets moving sound in real environments.
That combination of motion, reflection, and cognition marks a key difference in approach. Rather than claiming to outperform all existing solutions, Brandenburg emphasizes the importance of addressing what’s been missing.
How is it different from what’s already out there?
It’s worth noting that some premium headphones from Apple, Sony, and Sennheiser do feature advanced spatial audio, including personalized HRTFs, head tracking, and scene-based adaptive noise control.
But Brandenburg Labs aims to take things further, by mimicking not just sound delivery, but actual auditory cognition.
Here’s how Brandenburg’s vision stacks up against what’s already out there:
| Feature | Current Spatial Audio | Brandenburg’s Vision |
|---|---|---|
| Head tracking | Yes | Yes |
| HRTF personalization | Available on some models (e.g., Apple AirPods Pro with iOS HRTF scanning) | More deeply integrated and central to experience |
| Room modeling | Basic or preset-based (Sony 360 Reality Audio offers some room calibration) | Real-time, dynamic reflections modeled to brain perception |
| Adaptive ANC | Yes, with scene-aware (like Sony’s Adaptive Sound Control) | Yes, but with contextual AI filtering based on sound type and intent |
| Real-world awareness | Ambient pass-through, adjustable | Auditory enhancement and personalization (selectively boost or suppress elements like speech or noise) |
| Everyday use | Mainly for media | Designed for all-day wear, like audio “glasses” |
| AI integration | Basic scene detection and adaptive modes | Advanced contextual awareness, understands what sounds you want to hear or ignore (e.g., mute yelling, enhance convo) |
Bringing the Vision to Reality
Brandenburg Labs has already released the Okeanos Pro headphones for audio professionals.
Priced at €5,000, they use Deep Dive Audio (DDA) technology to create an experience so convincing that “users may forget they’re wearing headphones”.
The Okeanos Pro can handle up to 16 channels with very low delay (10ms), matching physical speaker systems that cost much more. They include a web interface and dedicated hardware, so it doesn’t burden your computer.
“Okeanos Pro offers a new approach to mixing via headphones,” Brandenburg explained in another interview.
“A key benefit of the system is that it simulates a speaker system inside of the producer’s studio, a familiar environment.”
While the professional system targets studios, Brandenburg Labs plans to release Okeanos Home for everyday consumers by the end of 2026.
After that, Personalized Auditory Reality is likely to push audio limits even further.
The next evolution in sound might not just be heard, but felt.