B-Format is a special way of encoding spatial information. It represents space using four audio streams: one to capture the sound pressure (W), and three to capture the X (front-to-back), Y (left-to-right), and Z (top-to-bottom) room coordinates. The following illustration shows you how these four audio streams interact with each other, to create a three-dimensional spatial image.

Space Designer can decode and convolve these four streams into reverbs, in all supported surround formats. Space Designer offers a comprehensive library of B-Format impulse responses that use all four streams (W, X, Y, and Z). As impulse responses do not make use of Z-axis information, Impulse Response Utility only records and encodes information from the W, X, and Y positions, saving CPU resources and disk space. Impulse Response Utility allows you to encode all supported surround impulse response formats in B-Format.