This presentation intends to explore urban ambiances through focusing on the world of sounds. What can be learned about an ambiance when we just listen to it? How and under which conditions is it possible to develop a sonic paradigm of urban ambiances? The basic argument is to consider sound as a particularly efficient medium to investigate and develop an account of urban ambiances. Various ideas will be explored in order to answer this question, involving theoretical, epistemological and methodological arguments. Three main directions are accentuated: the first one relates to the tuning into an ambiance, the second relates to the unfolding of an ambiance, and the third relates to the situating within an ambiance.