Perceptual effects of ambisonics on room auralization

Authors

  • Sylvain Favrot Centre for Applied Hearing Research, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark
  • Jörg Buchholz Centre for Applied Hearing Research, Department of Electrical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark

Abstract

Higher-order Ambisonics (HOA) has been widely used for loudspeaker-based reproduction of static and moving sound sources from arbitrary directions. When Ambisonics is used to reproduce anechoic sound sources, it is known that the achievable directionality is limited and coloration artifacts are introduced. However, it is unclear to what extend HOA affects auditory performance measures when it is applied to reproduce reverberant sounds. In order to investigate this issue, a loudspeaker-based room auralization (LoRA) system was utilized, which was recently developed at the Centre for Applied Hearing Research. Within the LoRA system, HOA is used in different ways to auralize the individual parts of a simulated room impulse response (i.e. direct sound, early re ections, and reverberation). In order to study the effect of HOA on the auditory processing of reverberant sounds, rst, the effect of the applied Ambisonic order on speech intelligibility in noise was investigated and compared to results obtained with “single loudspeaker” auralization. Second, a distance perception experiment was performed to evaluate the entire LoRA processing in comparison to recorded binaural auralization. For these two experiments, listener performance in HOA-generated virtual environments was similar to that of the reference case which represented the “real” environment.

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Additional Files

Published

2009-12-15

How to Cite

Favrot, S., & Buchholz, J. (2009). Perceptual effects of ambisonics on room auralization. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research, 2, 165–174. Retrieved from https://proceedings.isaar.eu/index.php/isaarproc/article/view/2009-17

Issue

Vol. 2 (2009): Binaural Processing and Spatial Hearing

Section

2009/2. Perceptual measures and models of spatial hearing

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