On 15 April 2026, two companies that spend most of the year fighting over the same festival main stages did something nobody expected: they agreed on a file format. L-Acoustics and d&b audiotechnik, alongside 35-year noise-modelling specialist SoundPLAN, launched SDE, short for System Design Exchange. It is not a speaker, not a subwoofer, not a marketing stunt about "immersive." It is a plumbing standard for the single most political number in outdoor dance music: how loud the neighbours say you are.
What does SDE actually do?
Until now, every brand predicted its own noise emissions with its own tool. d&b designs in ArrayCalc. L-Acoustics designs in Soundvision. Each spits out its own numbers, in its own logic, and an environmental consultant trying to model a multi-rig festival site had to reconcile predictions that were never built to agree. SDE makes both design tools export the same standardised file, which drops straight into SoundPLAN, the environmental software councils and acoustic consultants actually use to sign off events.
The pitch is interoperability: one method, one file, comparable results no matter whose boxes are flying. The technical meat is in the modelling, because SDE carries calibration and decoherence factors, the messy real-world acoustics that decide whether a prediction holds up at a resident's window a kilometre away.
Why would two competitors share this?
Because the alternative is losing the room entirely. L-Acoustics' Yann Gaël Gicquel framed it without spin: "Organizing a festival today means navigating real tension between the energy that makes live music special and the legitimate expectations of the communities hosting it." d&b's Florian Hahn called SDE "a huge step forward in addressing the noise management challenges of large-scale events."
Read between the lines. Curfews, decibel caps and resident complaints are now the deciding factor in whether an event gets a licence at all. When a promoter, a council and an acoustician sit down, each manufacturer's private numbers used to be a negotiating weakness. A shared standard turns three arguments into one.
"Using SDE gives everyone at that table one shared, reliable source of truth for those conversations.", Yann Gaël Gicquel, L-Acoustics
Who is left out, and for how long?
For now, SDE is a two-brand club plus SoundPLAN. d&b users reach it inside ArrayCalc; L-Acoustics is routing it through certified consultants. But both sides say the format will be opened to other manufacturers and other noise software in the future, which is the part worth watching. A standard backed by only the two biggest names is a cartel; a standard anyone can export to is infrastructure. SoundPLAN boss Jochen Schaal is betting on the latter: "SDE will set a new benchmark for noise prediction in the audio industry."
