3D sound specialist: Chinese audio company takes over NewAuro

The Belgian company Auro Technologies, known internationally for its "Auro 3D" sound format, which had to file for insolvency at the beginning of 2022 and was acquired shortly afterwards by the private equity company Saffelberg and continued as NewAuro BV, is being taken over again. The Chinese Goerdyna Group has now announced that it has founded Goer Dynamics B.V. in Belgium, which will take over "the business operations, intellectual property and key personnel" of NewAuro. The previous NewAuro CEO Rudy Van Duppen will also act as CEO of Goer Dynamics B.V..

The Goerdyna Group itself is probably not a household name, but the brands Dynaudio (loudspeakers) and Libratone (headphones and loudspeakers) of the former Chinese supplier are well known. According to Goer Dynamics, it also works with the world's leading car manufacturers to "continuously develop innovations and high-end system designs for the automotive audio industry".

"AuroMasters" announced

The announcement of the change comes shortly after Auro-3D founder and former head of Auro Technologies Wilfried van Baelen announced his intention to launch "AuroMasters", a new streaming platform with fair remuneration for artists that will enable immersive streaming of high-resolution music. Van Baelen wants to raise money for the new venture via the financing platform Spreds.

It will be interesting to see to what extent van Baelen will be competing with Goer Dynamics. At CES 2023, NewAuro presented a new streaming codec for 3D music that works more efficiently than the Auro 3D version used on (UHD) Blu-ray and also includes lossy variants, while the original codec only recognizes lossless compression (with correspondingly higher data rates).

(nij)