A New Immersive Sound Experience

Eichler Hall was built, in part, to feature a spatial audio sound system that creates a 360-degree listening sphere through speaker placements and high-tech algorithms known as ambisonics. This system, making its debut in 2026-2027, allows students, faculty, and visiting artists to present innovative electroacoustic and electronic music performances and demonstrations for immersive sound experiences.

The system will also serve as a multidisciplinary research tool, allowing the College of Music to collaborate with academic and industry partners around the world to explore advances in acoustics, sonic ecology, health and wellness, manufacturing and occupational safety training, and more. Totaling 146 Genelec speakers, it will be the largest of its kind in the United States!

The Possibilities

While surround sound is a system of multiple audio channels that increases the depth and fidelity of sound, an ambisonic speaker system takes surround sound one step further. Ambisonics closely creates a 360-degree listening sphere through speaker placements and filter algorithms that place sound in precise locations and allow smooth transitions from one location to the next.

While composers have long invested in exploring spatialized sound, ambisonics build on immersive listening by extending it beyond solo listening via headphones to communal or group experiences.

While surround sound allows for very specific constructed sonic spaces using quadrophonic, eight-channel audio, and theatre standard sound systems, ambisonics expands on that experience by providing front-to-back or back-to-front listening, sound elevation, and the aural illusion of perceiving sounds where they are not. By creating a more accurate spatial illusion than what is possible with surround sound, ambisonics is becoming increasingly popular for virtual reality environments, gaming and simulation, as well for 3D listening and performance for communal audiences.

Concerts, events, and master classes leveraging the ambisonic systems of the educational lab and performance space in Eichler Hall will be open to composers, performers, and the greater community. Students will be able to create portfolio works for applying to electronic music festivals, residencies, and performance opportunities, as well as for further study in electronic music, sound art installation, entertainment and film, and video game systems.

Ed and Wanda Eichler with their children (from left) William, Liesl, and Peter Eichler who are all MSU and Spartan Marching Band alumni.

The Donors

Eichler Hall is a 2,150 square foot space with high ceilings, skylight, and state-of-the-art acoustics in the Billman Music Pavilion. It was specially built with an audiovisual infrastructure with the intent to create this ambisonic speaker system.

Wanda and Ed Eichler made it possible, and they have explained that one of their motivations is the fact that their whole family has some type of musical background. Wanda plays piano and organ, has taken violin lessons, and has done extensive choral work including directing church choirs. Ed and their children Will, Liesl, and Peter were in the brass and percussion areas of bands.

Considering their gifts to MSU that include new trumpets for the Spartan Marching Band, new turf on the SMB practice field, a custom-designed pipe organ for the MSU Alumni Chapel, and other gifts to the Broad Art Museum, WKAR Radio and the Great Lakes Concerts series, the MSU Museum, and Athletics, their Spartan Legacy was already solid when they stepped forward during the construction of the College of Music expansion. They funded the hall that would later allow an incredible amibsonics experience to come to life, and they have shown time and again that they are willing to go above and beyond when it comes to helping students.