# Channels, Objects, Scenes and Binaural: The Language of Immersive Formats

> Learn the language of immersive audio formats: channel-based, object-based, Ambisonics and binaural, plus ADM BWF, Eclipsa Audio and which format to deliver.

Web page: https://spatial9.ai/blog/academy-immersive-audio-formats
Author: Spatial9 Team
Published: 2026-10-04. Updated: 2026-10-04.

## Key takeaways
- Immersive audio describes space in four ways: channel-based, object-based, scene-based Ambisonics and binaural.
- In main.LFE.height notation, 7.1.4 means seven main channels, one LFE channel and four height channels, for twelve channels in total.
- Ambisonic order n uses (n+1) squared channels, so first order needs 4 channels, second order 9 and third order 16.
- Dolby Atmos is a licensed object-based format supporting up to 128 channels of beds and objects, while IAMF is open and royalty-free.

In this lesson: You will learn the four ways immersive audio describes space: channels, objects, scenes and binaural. You will decode notation like 7.1.4, count Ambisonic channels, and learn which deliverable to choose for YouTube, streaming, headphones and VR. Then you will switch between two of these paradigms live in the Immersive Classroom.

Every language has a grammar. Immersive audio does too. When a producer asks for "a 7.1.4 bed with objects", a VR team asks for "third-order Ambisonics", or a distributor asks for "an ADM BWF master", they are speaking that language.

Once you can speak it, a lot of doors open. You can read a delivery spec without panic. You can talk to film mixers, game audio teams, streaming platforms and developers as an equal. You can choose the right format for each project instead of guessing.

The good news is that the grammar is simpler than it looks. There are only four big ideas. Everything else is detail.


## What you will learn

- How channel-based audio works, and how to read notation such as 5.1 and 7.1.4.
- What makes object-based audio flexible across speaker layouts.
- How scene-based Ambisonics stores a full sphere, and how many channels each order needs.
- How binaural rendering brings any of these to headphones.
- Which deliverable to choose: ADM BWF, Eclipsa Audio (IAMF), binaural or Ambisonics.

The rest of this lesson is free with a Spatial9 account: https://spatial9.ai/blog/academy-immersive-audio-formats