It was developed by Fraunhofer IIS in collaboration with Thomson and Agere Systems, and released in December 2004.
The current evaluation encoder is licensed for personal and non-commercial uses.
An MP3 Surround file can be created from 5 or 6 channels of WAV audio.
In January 2006, Thomson and Fraunhofer IIS also released two new companion technologies: Ensonido, which allows playback of MP3 Surround 5.1 channel sound through stereo headphones, and MP3 SX, which upgrades standard stereo mp3 file to mp3 surround files.
As of 2 July 2008, with system software v2.40, PlayStation 3 supports MP3 Surround playback.