A method and apparatus for creating spatialized sound, including the operations of determining a spatial point in a spherical coordinate system, and applying an impulse response filter corresponding to the spatial point to a first segment of the audio waveform to yield a spatialized waveform. The spatialized waveform emulates the audio characteristics of a non-spatialized waveform emanating from the chosen spatial point. That is, when the spatialized waveform is played from a pair of speakers, the played sound apparently emanates from the chosen spatial point instead of the speakers. A finite impulse response filter may be employed to spatialize the audio waveform. The finite impulse response filter may be derived from a head-related transfer function modeled in spherical coordinates, rather than a typical Cartesian coordinate system. The spatialized audio waveform ignores speaker cross-talk effects, and requires no specialized decoders, processors, or software logic to recreate the spatialized sound.