SPACE – Soundscape Projection Ambisonic Control Engine is a research and music production center within the Electronic Laboratories for Experimental Music (LEMS) at the G. Rossini Conservatoire. It features a sound diffusion room designed for higher-order ambisonic technology.

The room, acoustically highly efficient and well balanced, is equipped with 21 + 1 speakers, geometrically equidistant and precisely calibrated. The system allows control of the three-dimensional sound field around a central listening area, enabling the creation and manipulation of virtual sound sources or the reproduction of any real acoustic environment in 3D space, including the vertical component. The room’s acoustically “inert” walls effectively “disappear” in the auditory perception of listeners inside, creating conditions to virtualize the perceived distance of sound objects, control their movement within the surrounding spherical space, and reproduce complex soundscapes with an exceptionally refined process of spatial reconstruction—achievements unattainable with any other system.

The main objectives of the center can be summarized in three types of activities:

a) Research in the fields of acoustics, auditory-musical perception, and acoustic ecology;

b) Experimentation and development of software applications in the field of new 3D sound spatialization technologies;

c) Electroacoustic composition, eco-acoustic composition, and music production for museums, performative events, and multimedia projects.

SPACE is the first spherical ambisonic room in Italy. It aims to collaborate on specific research and production projects with other institutions in Italy, as well as with similar centres in Europe and North America, and to network with institutions in the Marche region.