Apple Studio Display - audio behind me disappears

FMOD Engine
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1

Hello,

I’ve noticed an issue when using FMOD in conjunction with the speakers built into my Apple studio display, that 3D sound sources behind the listener fall completely silent. This doesn’t happen with other sets of speakers/headphones that I’ve tried. Has anyone dealt with this who can illuminate the issue for me?

Happy to share relevant C++ code if necessary, it’s a very simple project. I haven’t changed any of the default settings, I just set the listener orientation with FMOD::System::set3DListenerAttributes() and set the sound position using FMOD::Channel::set3DAttributes(). As I say, the sound behaves correctly with ordinary headphones and speakers, it’s only with the studio display speakers that I am completely deaf to sound sources “behind” the listener.

Any suggestions are welcome, thanks :slight_smile:

2

Alright, I discovered the source of the issue: FMOD reports the Studio display as supporting 7.1 audio, and maybe it does… or maybe something goofy is happening with this device that I don’t understand. Either way, I can work around the issue by forcing my app to mix audio in stereo with FMOD::System::setSoftwareFormat(), which must be called before FMOD::System::init() to have any effect. Hope this helps someone else in the future.

1 Like
3

Hi,

Thanks for sharing the solution!