Thomas Dolby began working in virtual reality in the early 1990s.

In 1993, Dolby designed The Virtual String Quartet at the Guggenheim Museum. Users put on a head-mounted display, and found themselves in the midst of a string quartet playing Mozart. The user could get closer to an instrument, which caused the sound to become more prominent. With a joystick, the user could tickle the musicians, spurring them to switch styles. It drew lines around the block, and the sound got good reviews. Yet it took a couple of decades for advances in processing power and headsets to bring virtual reality to a wider audience, as well as make it easier for the graphics and sound to line up in real-time.

Now, Dolby sees big tech companies pursuing advancements that point toward wider adoption. And, he added, “They recognize that sound and music are a crucial part of it.”

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