Today Google+ introduces a new audio feature, called “Studio Mode,” drastically improving the audio quality in Google+ Hangout sessions.

Google+ Project Manager Loren Groves, on RollingStone:

“We knew that in order for entertainers to use this service, we would have to move forward from just the standard voice codec,” Groves says. “Right now, when we’re talking, there is a crazy complex mechanism working to make our video and voices stay in sync. But they have no musical properties. So when we turn all of those off and up the quality of the audio, making it stereo, it was like, OK, now we’ve got something we can listen to.”

Groves hopes that with better sound, more and more musicians will be enticed to take advantage of the interactivity of Google+ Hangouts. “David Guetta has broadcast concerts live on YouTube, and it’s fantastic,” he says. “But if he had 10 other fans in that Hangout that were lucky winners that were having house parties Guetta was privately performing for, now you’ve got good value. And if you took that Hangout screen and blew it up on a projector and could see all these people from Russia, Japan and India, all dancing to him at one time, I would feel like I’m part of this worldwide party. The two-way interaction is key.”

Full story here.