Announced and blogged a month ago, the new MP3 Surround file format is now officially released by the Fraunhofer Institute and Thomson Electronics, inventors of MP3 compression. When one considers that the popularity of MP3 is based on convenience, not high fidelity or special effects, success is difficult to predict. But the format might gain some traction among those who collect soundtrack MP3s, and other genres which typically lend themselves to fractioning the stereo image. But these days, nearly the entire emphasis of MP3 is portability, and surround sound doesn't mean a thing when you're listening through ear buds. MP3 and fine audio are like oil and water, and I think MP3 Surround is barking up the wrong tree (to mix metaphors like… well, like oil and water).
