A photograph records an appearance. A recording captures a particular sounding event. A three-dimensional model describes geometry. Each makes something about an instrument accessible, but none alone carries the whole research context.
A Virtual Acoustic Object (VAO) connects these representations in an explicit, versioned research object. Descriptive information, recordings, measurements, images, geometry and interaction data can be related to their sources, rights and exact files.
The exchange standard and the experience are separate. A VAO package is a fixed dataset; a viewer or runtime interprets the capabilities it declares. An object can support a spatial model, sampled playback or an analytical view without implying that every package supports every experience.