The fine folks who brought you MP3 — the Fraunhofer Institute — have now come up with multichannel MP3, bringing surround sound to the format. You can download a time-restricted evaluation of the new encoder and player on their website. (Windows only, of course, but they say that a Mac OS version is coming in about a week.)
This is an interesting development, because the Apple Airport Express, which streams music from iTunes and features an optical audio port, supports multichannel audio. But multichannel is conspicuously missing from the current incarnation of iTunes. Could this be the next step in its evolution?
