Eminent Domain, a new Audible Original audiobook set and recorded in New Mexico that’s described as a “study in sound,” presents a science fiction story told from the main character Loretta’s point-of-view through an immersive, first-person recording captured with DPA 4560 binaural microphones.

Written and produced by Victoriano Cardenas and Warren Langford of Galisteo Production, the audio book captures all the conversations, background sounds and other audio nuances surrounding Loretta, portrayed by Ama Zathura. “We found that DPA’s binaural mics sound the closest to human hearing,” explains Langford, who also served as the story’s writer and director. “We really wanted to capture the environment as naturally as possible. When we tested the mics online, with the 3Dio, we said, ‘this sounds the same as walking into a room and hearing exactly what it sounds like.’ So, we knew we needed to find those exact mics for our immersive audio projects.”

Not only was Zathura able to wear the DPA binaural mic, but it captured the sound from her perspective. The 4560 is comprised of a stereo pair of DPA 4060s, selected based on sensitivity within ±1.5 dB.

The sound that the mics provided was crucial in the telling of the story, which relied heavily on Zathura’s performance. They also captured ambient sounds beyond the speech elements, such as a car crash and a restaurant scene. As the story is heard from Zathura’s perspective, she performed roughly two-thirds of the dialogue of the three-and-a-half-hour-long book, which meant she needed to wear the headset for long periods of time. In addition to the mic, Zathura also wore a Sound Devices MixPre-3 II recorder.

“My on-set sound people would put the recorder and DPA 4560 headset on Ama, very carefully pinning the mic to her clothing to ensure it didn’t catch on anything,” says Langford. “The setup continually performed great. The sound from every single environment is perfect.”

For the restaurant scene, Langford “used the headset mic to capture additional sound in a restaurant for laying down in post. We wanted to record in a restaurant, so I sat there by myself, recording with the mics. We just layered that sound into our story, which worked extremely well.”

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