WOoooo, this sounds like a massive yet facinating area of research...

Things like EAX and DSP's are the equivalent of 2D Sprite systems with alpha.. quite primative but fund for a while.

Sound or Molecule vibration tracing would be a brilliant field to check out..

Instead of the usual psuedo realistic sound occurs here, gets quieter with distance (imaging early 3D sprite systems for comparison).. then add doppler effects (Basic Sprite rotation) and what do we have? A 2D system from the early 90's on an amiga

In the 3D world of graphics we have a lot because it's harder to fool the eyes than the ears.. or most peoples ears anyway, I say that because some people have fantastic hearing and playing computer games for them must be like a world where the best games are on a Sega Mastersystem.

Creative labs et al need to pull their respecive fingers from their bum holes and get to work on this.. realistic sound pressure simiuation. For a lot of us, we won't notice the difference.. but then maybe we will. Aferall, if I can tell the difference between a MP3 and an OGG Vorbis file of similar size, I'm sure others can.