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The Tesseract

A tesseract is the four-dimensional analog of a cube. While it’s impossible to visualize a true tesseract from our three-dimensional perspective, ICAT is exploring what one might sound like. As the team behind the Cube, a flagship ICAT studio since 2013. It was only a matter of time before a tesseract joined the studio lineup. This studio, however, has one distinct feature: mobility.

Designed by ICAT immersive audio engineer Tanner Upthegrove, the Tesseract addresses the challenge of bringing the Cube’s 140-speaker array outside of Virginia Tech’s Center for the Arts.

This portable platform features a high-density loudspeaker array, allowing ICAT researchers to share the awe-inspiring spatial audio of the Cube in a walkable, transportable format. When deployed in its standard 12-foot-high, 12-foot-wide, 12-foot-long cubic configuration, the Tesseract can accommodate up to eight listeners at a time. Though cubic in shape, the Tesseract is far more than a scaled-down Cube.

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Without the Tesseract, projects like Celestial Garden, Liminal Spaces, the Sonification of Cybersecurity Data project, and the exhibition Sound Horizons would not have been possible.

The Tesseract delivers immersive, headphone-free spatial audio experiences in a shared environment. Constructed from off-the-shelf theatrical truss components, it enables rapid deployment and setup. Approximately eight people can stand inside simultaneously, engaging with the spatialized audio in real-time, and without the need for headphones.

System Details

  •  First-generation Tesseract: Supports up to 64 individually addressable loudspeakers, driven by Power over Ethernet (PoE) network switches. Each loudspeaker receives a unique stream via the Audio Video Bridging (AVB) AVoIP protocol. The miniDSP speakers are arranged in stereo pairs and draw up to 15 watts per channel. The system can present audio levels up to 100 LCSmax.
  •  Second-generation Tesseract: Capable of hosting hundreds of individually addressable loudspeakers across a digital network. Additional details forthcoming.