Designed for 360° immersive applications, the Sennheiser AMBEO VR is a microphone intended to bring the full vision of VR content creators to life in all its four-channel glory. Indeed, the microphone utilizes four KE 14 capsules situated in a tetrahedral arrangement to ensure that from wherever you’re standing, the AMBEO will record the surrounding audio in a spherical manner, resulting in true Ambisonics recordings.

The science behind these principles is a bit arduous to lay out in the space provided for this description (indeed, multiple dissertations have been written about the Ambisonics format—developed by the British National Research Development Council in the 1970s); the principles are, however, of interest to the VR community, which utilize the technique to capture truly immerse aspects of any given sonic picture, giving you the left, right, bottom, top and center of the image in a way especially suited to the VR experience.

To help in working with the resulting audio in post-production, the microphone comes with a format encoder that will work in AU, AAX, VST, and standalone formats. Also included are a Rycote suspension mount, a split-cable designed to connect the microphone to four separate XLR terminations, and a windshield.