Is disco back for Australia’s Audio Engineers? What is Graeme Huon holding? No, it’s not a ’70s disco ball, it’s a new type of speaker.

The strange looking omni directional speaker was explained by its inventor, Graeme Huon, at this week’s SMPTE conference in a session titled ‘Audio Formats Beyond Surround Sound.’ It gives height as well as ‘surround’ sound, using a new speaker configuration and reverberant room acoustics.

Huon explained that the listener “can move freely and even walk around the sound sources, and correctly experience the behaviour of a real sound field with multiple sources.”

Unlike surround sound, the speaker gives the listener the choice to move around and does not tie them to sitting in a particular ‘sweet spot’ with five speakers placed around and behind them.

Huon’s groundbreaking work on audio technology has seen him start up several companies, including Techstream and the Whise Precision Audio group of companies. His present company, Huon Labs, has been formed to commercialise the next wave of audio technologies, which includes his groovy speakers.

In the same session, Swinburne University’s Jim Barbour spoke about how Digital Radio can be used to transmit surround sound formats, and told conference participants that several countries are testing surround formats and producing digital radio programs using surround sound.

“Surround Sound is one more way to make radio more interesting to this new generation of listeners,” says Barbour.