Sennheiser Acquires Majority Stake in VR/AR Audio Software Company Dear Reality

July 9 2019, 14:35
Sennheiser has taken a majority sharehold in Dear Reality GmbH. The German company specialized in spatial audio algorithms and VR/AR audio software will continue to operate as a separate company based in Düsseldorf and Dear Reality confirms that its existing customers will be able to rely on existing dearVR products, while looking forward to new joint VR/AR workflows developed in collaboration with Sennheiser. Uwe Cremering, responsible for AMBEO Immersive Audio at Sennheiser, will support the company as a third CEO alongside founders Achim Fell and Christian Sander.
 

In order to expand its AMBEO Immersive Audio Project, in early 2018, Sennheiser confirmed an investment in Dear Reality, simultaneously with the acquisition of technologies from Sonic Emotion, a Swiss developer of award-winning 3D audio software and processing solutions. With those two early investments, Sennheiser gained access to unique expertise and tools for the creation and rendering of immersive audio in object-based and scene-based formats. Now, Dear Reality becomes part of the Sennheiser Group.
 
“For us, 3D audio is the future. With AMBEO, Sennheiser is active in all areas of immersive audio production, from the initial recording to mixing and processing and, finally, reproduction,” says co-CEO Dr. Andreas Sennheiser. “Audio software is an important building block in this production chain, especially as regards VR/AR applications.”

Co-CEO Daniel Sennheiser explained: “We are pleased to have gained additional highly qualified software experts and further 3D audio products with the acquisition of Dear Reality. At the same time, leveraging the strength of the Sennheiser brand and its global distribution network will give Dear Reality a larger scope of action.”

“We have been working closely with Sennheiser as an investor and partner for the past one and a half years, and are excited to now become a part of the Sennheiser family,” add Dear Reality founders Achim Fell and Christian Sander. “3D audio software has an ever-increasing importance in audio production. Together, we will expand our innovative, professional end-to-end workflows – and develop new ones.”
 
The CEOs of Dear Reality GmbH (from left to right): Uwe Cremering, Achim Fell and Christian Sander.

Dear Reality is now recognized for its dearVR PRO binaural, Ambisonics and multichannel encoder with totally realistic room virtualization, complemented with the use of immersive audio controllers. The company’s products are used by sound engineers, sound designers, broadcasters and musicians that are creating content for VR/AR platforms and those solutions allow mixing and tuning the sound design from the actual virtual environments.
In recent presentations, Dear Reality has been successfully demonstrating its latest software, dearVR Spatial Connect, which allows mixing VR content using virtual reality solutions, directly from existing DAWs, such as Steinberg's Nuendo 10.

For more stories on Sennheiser AMBEO immersive audio solutions click here.
www.dearvr.comwww.sennheiser.com
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