Our History

Created as a research project in 2017 by Gaëtan Byk, CEO of Amadeus, in collaboration with leading French research institutions CNRS and the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (Ircam), HOLOPHONIX became an independent legal entity with dedicated resources in 2023.

For more than thirty years, Amadeus has designed, built, and marketed a wide range of electro-acoustic reproduction systems and high-end signal processing equipment, that combine high technology, style, and emotion.

The Amadeus brand has grown to become a leading provider of high-end audio solutions and services for theaters, opera houses, concert halls, museums, recording studios, and research centers.

In 2017, Amadeus decided to launch its own research project, and to design a simple, intuitive and ergonomic tool that would be perfectly optimized considering the needs and demands of our users in the theatre, musical and performance arts fields.

We also wanted to think about immersive sound projects with a global approach, combining research in terms of spatialization with research in terms of electroacoustics.

The success of the HOLOPHONIX immersive audio hardware and software solution and the demands we currently have to meet led us to accelerate its deployment. We have to live up to the challenges and the trust that our customers and users place in us

At the same time, HOLOPHONIX is strengthening its governance to ensure the proper execution of its development plan, in line with the technological and artistic challenges dear to the brand. To further these goals, HOLOPHONIX hired Frédéric Biessy as director of the new HOLOPHONIX company.

As a producer of live performance shows for several decades, an aesthete and great patron of culture, and a founder of major theatrical institutions with an innovative model – including La Scala Paris and La Scala Provence, as well as of the production label La Scala Music – Frederic Biessy is one of the original customers of the HOLOPHONIX solution.

After five years of development, the HOLOPHONIX environment is becoming global, including software, processors of different formats and services, especially in terms of specific developments and technological and artistic advice for major creative projects.

The HOLOPHONIX technology aims to democratize immersive sound and spatialized mixing for live performances, breaking out of the monophonic or stereophonic paradigm – formats that are still mostly used in the field – to offer users and audiences a new experience of live performances with an augmented sound dimension. Since 2017, many major performing arts venues have already adopted the HOLOPHONIX technology, and hundreds of creative projects have already been carried out by major creators, composers, directors, or conductors.

The Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (Ircam) is one of the largest public research centers in the world, dedicated to both musical expression and scientific research. This unique place where artistic sensibility meets with scientific and technological innovation brings together over 160 collaborators.

Since its inception, the HOLOPHONIX solution has integrated a large part of their technologies related to the spatialization of sound, including highly advanced 2D and 3D sound algorithms.

Our long and close relationship with the teams at the Ircam Institute in Paris, and their trust in our teams for almost 25 years, has inevitably led us to move closer to integrating a large part of their technologies related to the spatialization of sound into the HOLOPHONIX solution.

Recently, HOLOPHONIX and Ircam raised 1.2-million euros to develop the new Continuum research program, which aims to develop a complete production chain, from capture to final playback, to create and deliver augmented spatial content to audiences both in a variety of shared spaces (theaters, cinemas, public or private spaces) and in individual listening situations in virtual reality or binaural rendering with headphones.

Since its inception, the HOLOPHONIX research project had brought together a plurality of talents from the most prestigious French musical, theatrical, and scientific institutions – whose experience and knowledge are as rich as they are complementary.

In its early years, HOLOPHONIX collaborated with several top engineers from world-renowned French institutions, including Jean-Marc Harel from La Gaîté Lyrique Theater, Marc Piera from Chaillot National Theater, and Dominique Bataille and Samuel Maitre from the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier – one of the three theaters of the world-famous Comédie-Française, Dewi Seignard from Les Champs Libres Cultural Center in Rennes, and Thierry Coduys, a musician, multidisciplinary artist, and producer, who has acted as the sound engineer for some of world’s most acclaimed modern composers including Pascal Dusapin, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Luciano Berio, and pianists and performers Marielle and Katia Labèque.

Since its initial product launch in 2017, HOLOPHONIX technology has been rapidly adopted by several major institutions in France and worldwide, as well as by many creators, composers, and artists. In just a few years, the solutions developed by HOLOPHONIX have become an essential reference for immersive creation and spatialized mixing, especially for the performing arts field.

HOLOPHONIX users and customers are spread across the world: France Centre Dramatique National de Normandie, Domaine des Etangs, Festival d’Avignon, Festival International d'Art Lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence, French National Library (BnF), La Comédie-Française, La Scala Paris, Le Panthéon, Scène Nationale de Sceaux, Théâtre National de Chaillot… China Beijing Stadium, Guangzhou University, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Xian Theatre... South Korea ACT Center, Lee Seok Young New Media Library... Switzerland ETH Zurich, Rhyality Immersive Art Hall…

Over the past five years, more than two million people have experienced the HOLOPHONIX sound through hundreds of creative projects and in the many cultural institutions equipped with the HOLOPHONIX technology.