For Roberto Saviano’s Le mani sul mondo, Silentsystem provided the wireless listening system and the Neumann KU 100 binaural head, creating an experience where every audience member could hear voices and sounds in front, behind and to the sides, directly in their headphones.
A podcast you hear live, on headphones
For Roberto Saviano’s live podcast dedicated to Le mani sul mondo, the goal wasn’t simply to amplify a voice in a room: it was to turn the individual listening experience typical of podcasts into a shared live experience.
The audience followed the performance on Silentsystem wireless headphones, while the voice and the ambience were captured with a Neumann KU 100 binaural head. Every audience member received a three-dimensional soundscape directly in their headphones, keeping the sense of closeness and intimacy that comes with listening to a podcast.
An event built around listening: not just a podcast played back in a theater, but a performance designed so the audience could perceive the sound space directly in their headphones.
The challenge: turning a podcast into a live experience
A podcast is usually made for private, up-close listening. Bringing it in front of an audience risks losing exactly what makes it special: the feeling that the voice is speaking directly to you.
That’s why, for this project, the venue’s PA system wasn’t the core solution. The idea was to give every person in the room an individual listening point, while everyone shared the same performance at the same moment.
Individual listening
Every audience member receives the content directly in their headphones, keeping the closeness and intimacy typical of a podcast.
Shared experience
The audience shares the same event and the same performance, but listening stays personal and acoustically isolated.
Sound space
Binaural recording preserves position and direction cues, so sounds can be perceived in space.
Wireless transmission
The RF system delivers the signal to the audience’s headphones in real time, with no individual connections or pairing required.
Why binaural audio changes the experience
Binaural recording uses two microphone capsules placed in the ears of an artificial head that reproduces the acoustic characteristics of a human head. Heard on headphones, the result preserves the spatial cues our hearing uses to locate a sound source.
During the performance, this means listeners don’t just hear a left and a right channel: voices and sounds can be located in front, behind, to the sides and all around them, depending on their position relative to the binaural head.
The headphone is part of the experience. The binaural effect is designed for individual listening: delivering the signal straight to the headphones lets every audience member receive the same soundscape while keeping the spatial feel of the recording.
The Silentsystem solution
Silentsystem supplied and integrated the two core elements of the experience: the Neumann KU 100 binaural microphone for three-dimensional sound capture and the SX-553 RF wireless headphones to deliver it to the audience.
The Neumann head effectively becomes the listener’s virtual point of audition. What its two capsules pick up is sent to the transmission system and played back in the headphones. When a voice or a sound moves around the head, the listener perceives that movement in space too.
ONE HEAD. HUNDREDS OF LISTENING POINTS.
The soundscape captured by the binaural system is delivered over RF directly to the audience’s headphones.
The technology used
| System | Role in the experience |
|---|---|
| Neumann KU 100 | Binaural head used to capture voice, movement and ambience with the spatial information needed for three-dimensional playback on headphones. |
| SX-553 HD headphones | RF wireless headphones handed out to the audience for individual listening to the binaural signal during the performance. |
| RF transmission system | Broadcasts the audio signal to the headphones in the listening area, so the whole audience can follow the performance at the same time. |
In this project, technology wasn’t an accessory to the production: it was part of the event’s language. Without individual headphone listening, the spatial sound captured by the binaural head couldn’t have been delivered to the audience in the same way.
Roberto Saviano: Le mani sul mondo
Roberto Saviano’s voice became the center of a soundscape designed to be heard up close. The format preserved the storytelling character of the podcast while turning it into a performance shared by the audience in the room.
The result was a live podcast where technology, storytelling and space worked together: not just amplified listening, but a sound environment experienced individually by every audience member.
Watch the event
In the video you can see the audience wearing Silentsystem headphones, Roberto Saviano during the performance, and the Neumann KU 100 binaural head used to create the listening experience.
Gallery
More helpful guides
Silent disco and silent party
How a silent disco works and what equipment you need.
Conferences and simultaneous interpretation
Wireless audio systems for conventions, trade shows, and multilingual events.
Headphone distribution
How to organize headphone handout and collection while cutting down wait times.
All guides
Technology, applications, and standards for wireless event audio systems.
Want to create a different kind of listening experience?
Silentsystem designs wireless audio systems for live podcasts, theater, installations, performances and productions where headphone listening becomes part of the creative project. From RF distribution to multichannel and binaural audio, the setup is built around the space, the audience and the content. Or reach out: Rent headphones online.
