Wharfedale Pro: spatial is breaking the stereo mould

Wharfedale Pro is offering a high-quality spatial audio solution that won’t break your budget

For decades, live and installed sound has largely followed the same old blueprint: left, right and a sweet spot somewhere in between. While innovation is seemingly rife among other forms of live production tech, there has been somewhat of a plateau when it comes to sound. However, according to Marko Jovanović, who is a senior audio engineer at Wharfedale Pro, that aging model is finally being challenged in a meaningful way.

“After a long, long time, we are looking at a truly new era of sound experience,” he says.

Enter spatial audio and Wharfedale Pro’s new WPI (Wharfedale Pro Immersive) series, previewed at ISE earlier this year. Blending dedicated DSP hardware with powerful software, WPI is designed to make immersive audio viable for a market where budgets are increasingly tight, yet demands for immersive integrations continue to skyrocket. Sound engineers should take notice.

Why WPI?

The general push towards spatial audio isn’t just a creative one, it’s practical. And in some regions, it’s already become a fully fledged requirement.

“For most of the bigger projects in mainland China, you have to be able to offer immersive audio,” says Jovanović. “These are mandatory conditions just to take part in the tender.”

This serves to emphasise the fact that the industry is evolving, and at a very fast rate. Major players are investing heavily, and audiences are expecting ever more engaging experiences. “If you want to bring people out of their houses, you need to give them something they cannot have at home.”

One of spatial audio’s most significant advantages is eliminating the limitations of stereo coverage. “We end up mixing mono, because that’s the only way the whole audience will hear what you want,” Jovanović states. Spatial audio changes that entirely. “The sweet spot becomes almost as wide as the audience.”

It also unlocks new creative potential. Sounds are able to move, hover and exist independently in a space without clashing. “If you spread sources in time and space domain, you don’t have to deal with masking frequencies anymore,” Jovanović adds. “So, you can leave everything in its natural range.”

Adaptive algorithms

A standout feature of WPI is its ability to run multiple spatial algorithms at the same time, something Jovanović says was ‘mind-blowing’ when he first encountered it. “You can have a helicopter flying around you using one algorithm and when it stops, it can switch to another,” he says. “That same setting will not work as well for moving objects for example, so this solves that trade-off.”

Combined with upgradeable licensing and scalable DSP configurations, the system is designed to grow with projects, whether they are smaller installations or larger immersive environments.

Perhaps most importantly, WPI isn’t a standalone product. It’s the final piece to the Wharfedale Pro puzzle – which powerfully comprises loudspeakers, amplifiers and processing that all work cohesively together.

“The product range is finally mature. It is not the weak link anymore,” comments Jovanović. “We are now armed with very decent speakers, very decent amplifiers, great processing power and great spatial software.” That integration, paired with notably competitive pricing for something of this calibre, could be key.

“If you start scaling up other systems, you get into huge numbers,” Jovanović concludes, “When you are doing it with us, however, you are not going to break the budget.”