The Power of Immersive Audio & Experiential Wellness

Introducing Setl

At Apogee, we’ve always believed that great audio is the foundation of a powerful creative experience. So, when we learned about Setl, an innovative experiential wellness company that uses immersive audio and visuals to promote mental well-being, we were immediately intrigued. Co-founded by siblings Zander and Sarah Thiele, Setl creates captivating multisensory experiences designed to help people destress and find emotional balance. They recently integrated a Symphony Studio 2×12 into their technical setup, and we sat down with Sarah to discuss Setl’s unique approach to wellness, the critical role of high-quality audio, and how our equipment helps them create truly immersive soundscapes.

Could you briefly explain Setl’s mission and what inspired the creation of this experiential wellness company? 

Gladly! 

We’re siblings and children of a dancer/cultural arts teacher and a musical instrument creator/builder. We’ve struggled with anxiety and burnout personally and the arts have ALWAYS been central to our own emotional grounding. The cultural arts can have a profound impact on brain health, emotional resilience, and the human connection. We’re creating spaces for people to center themselves and to de-stress within original music and original artwork. 

In a nutshell, we’re over the seemingly constant pressure of anxiety and burnout on the world. Modern society faces tremendous stressors; we’ve been rocked by a global pandemic, by war, by ecological change, by global socio-economic crises, by the exciting but transcendental developments in AI. The hits just keep coming as we watch anxiety becoming a default state for human beings. We founded Setl to help relieve some of this mental pressure; we’re out to bolster mental and emotional balance through original music and original artwork. 

The “Experiential” in Wellness: 

What does “experiential wellness” mean to Setl, and how does your approach differ from traditional wellness methods? 

Experiential wellness has a bit of a buzz to it, doesn’t it?! Both it and the term “immersive wellness” tend to describe activities and practices designed to deepen connection with self and/or with others; these activities can be interactive and often feature engaging presentations that exert a mental and emotional stimulus. 

In Setl’s view, entertainment is a keystone to experiential wellness. Every day, entertainment is used to influence the human mind and emotions, but rarely do we look to it to support mental and emotional balance. 

Traditional wellness methods such as meditation or yoga require a commitment of practice and time from participants, and aren’t always accessible in high-stimulation environments like conventions, corporate campuses, or airports. Music and art-based wellness experiences—such as sound baths or light and frequency therapy—can feel less approachable to some due to their association with alternative or unconventional practices. 

At Setl, we think of our approach as a “pop” approach to mindfulness. We focus on creating immersive experiences that are captivating, entertaining, and commercial with original music and art designed to inspire awe, to invite curiosity, and to spark personal interpretation.

The Power of Immersive Technology: 

How does Setl utilize advanced spatial audio and immersive visual technologies like 360-degree projection and virtual reality to enhance well-being? What makes this approach so effective? 

This is a really exciting time for AV technology and the arts. Using technologies like XR, LED surfaces, or projection, we are able to trick the brain’s perception of movement, space, and even time, visually transporting a viewer to a different place. From an audio standpoint, spatial technology enables listeners to experience sound multi-dimensionally in a much more organic and impactful fashion than traditional stereo audio.

Creators can now design an acoustic experience that moves sound in space, through and about the listener, embedding that listener inside the music and forming a visceral link between sound and its recipient. Art and music powered by immersive technologies serve as a sensory-rich environment that can have profound effects: reduced stress, anxiety, and/or negative emotions, enhanced relaxation, even a sense of collective effervescence and connection to the world. 

For Setl, what were the key audio requirements for creating truly immersive experiences within your projection domes and multi-surface projections, and why was high-quality audio such a critical component? 

All of our experiences feature spatial audio. Depth, dimension, movement, and high-quality sound are of the utmost importance to us. For this reason, the minimum audio playback system we utilize for a Setl Space is 7.1.4. For individual experiences through headphones, we utilize a binaural render of a spatial audio mix. 

Audio is at the heart of Setl’s experiences. Partly because of our history—we were both musically trained from an early age—but also because of the way music can access emotion. Most people have only ever experienced spatial audio in the cinema—if you’ve ever been in a Dolby-enabled theater, you have. 

Dolby Atmos changed the way we experience sound by allowing it to move beyond the screen, behaving much more like audio does in real life. Seated in a theater, we can hear—and even feel—the momentum of an object zooming past, or the rumble of an oncoming herd of giant animals. 

Our brains—and therefore our bodies—have a special relationship with sound. Hearing is one of the first senses to develop after birth and it holds memories powerful enough to inform us of size, speed, energy, intention, and so much more. Sound sets tone and shapes perception. It can move us deeply. 

Spatial playback maximizes the impact of non-live sound. 

Can you describe how the Symphony Studio is integrated into the technical setup of your projection domes and Multi-Surface Projections? How does it handle the multi-channel audio needs for a fully immersive soundscape and was it easy to set up?

The Symphony Studio series interfaces have been a welcomed addition to our immersive playback systems. They integrate beautifully with Dolby Renderer and analog outputs provide seamless connectivity to our immersive speaker array, ensuring transparent audio delivery of an Atmos mix. 

Apogee Control 2 offers intuitive control over routing, levels, and monitoring; our first installation and playback through a live system using the Symphony was quite literally plug and play. It made multi-channel performance feel ridiculously simple. 

What kind of multisensory content and experiences does Setl create? Can you give some examples of what participants might encounter in one of your sessions? 

Setl experiences are generally “bite-size” with under-10 minute runtime. Participants will always listen to audio and then will experience some form of visual stimulus, whether through animation or lighting. All of our experiences are designed to create a “cocoon” where a participant’s journey takes place. Our audio will feel more like popular music than what is traditionally thought of as “wellness music.” Our visual experiences tend to have an “ink blot” feel, providing themes that are evocative and suggestive, but that distinctly leave room for interpretation – for reading between the lines. 

Setl Spaces^TM are rooms that feature a spatial audio delivery system along with visual delivery such as multi-surface projection, LED walls, or programmed lighting. As a discrete physical cocoon, Setl Spaces tend to be highly effective as mental reset spaces. We’ll launch these spaces in corporate offices, in healthcare & treatment settings, and in social- and entertainment-oriented hubs. 

Setl Flow^TM experiences are looping experiences typically featuring headphones. The experience loops every 5-10 minutes and participants are invited to “drop in” by putting on a pair of headphones and staying for as long or short as they prefer. These experiences are perfect for events, for common areas, or for public spaces where a dedicated room and full spatial audio installation are not feasible. 

We’ve created experiences in virtual reality and in projection dome formats as well and, having just passed our first birthday, experimentation is fundamental to our creative process! 

What exciting developments or future projects are on the horizon for Setl that you can share with our readers? 

We’re proud to call both Los Angeles and Las Vegas home as we continue building our brand and creating powerful, immersive opportunities. Summer 2025 will find us bringing Setl Spaces and Setl Flow experiences to select community events across both cities and beyond. The best way to follow along with our journey and to hear of where to experience with us is to follow our Instagram @setl-art.