AES Paris 2016
Paper Session P23
P23 - Immersive Audio: Part 2
Tuesday, June 7, 12:15 — 14:15 (Room 352B)
Chair:
Robin Reumers, Sonic City Studios - Amsterdam, The Netherlands
P23-1 Exploring the Benefits of Surround Sound in Contemporary Live Music Performances—John Crossley, University of Derby - Derby, UK
Spatial audio utilizing 5.1 surround sound and newer developments such as object oriented audio has become well established in cinema and home theaters. The expansion of this into live musical performance is quite limited. This work explores the benefits of surround sound for contemporary music performance. A 20-channel Wavefield synthesis system was compared to a high quality stereo sound reinforcement system under identical experimental conditions. An original composition was used to avoid familiarity with program material and to encourage focus on spatial considerations. Data drawn from audiences at both performances is used to quantify the perceptual differences for the average audience and to draw conclusions as to the usefulness of using a system of this type in an “average” contemporary live music performance.
Convention Paper 9594 (Purchase now)
P23-2 Extended Bass Management Methods for Cost-Efficient Immersive Audio Reproduction in Digital Cinema—Toni Hirvonen, Dolby Laboratories - Stockholm, Sweden; Charles Q. Robinson, Dolby Laboratories - San Francisco, CA, USA
New, more sophisticated cinema audio formats have recently been developed and deployed that provide a more immersive sound field for the audience members. This paper discusses techniques that can reduce the economic costs associated with the installation and maintenance of the audio reproduction devices in contemporary immersive digital cinema, while best retaining the benefits of these new formats. The focus of this paper is novel bass management techniques that enable the use of cost-effective loudspeakers. These proposed bass processing methods take advantage of the reduced spatial saliency of low frequency audio and allow for a reduced spatial resolution for audio signals in that range. We present subjective tests conducted in a state of the art cinema installation that illustrate the effects of the proposed solutions on sound quality. Some of the these techniques have been incorporated to the future version of the Dolby Atmos cinema specification.
Convention Paper 9595 (Purchase now)
P23-3 Local Wave Field Synthesis by Spatial Band-Limitation in the Circular/Spherical Harmonics Domain—Nara Hahn, University of Rostock - Rostock, Germany; Fiete Winter, Universität Rostock - Rostock, Germany; Sascha Spors, University of Rostock - Rostock, Germany
The achievable accuracy of sound field synthesis (SFS) techniques, such as Wave Field Synthesis (WFS), is mainly limited in practice due to the limited loudspeaker density. Above the so called spatial aliasing frequency, considerable artifacts are introduced in the synthesized sound field. In local SFS, the accuracy within a local listening area is increased at the cost of degradations outside. In this paper a new approach for local WFS is proposed. The WFS driving functions are computed based on an order-limited harmonics expansion of the target sound field. A local listening area is created around the shifted expansion center where the synthesized sound field exhibits higher accuracy. The size of the local area is controlled by the expansion order of the driving function. The derivations of 2D, 3D, and 2.5D driving functions are given, and the synthesized sound fields are evaluated by numerical simulations.
Convention Paper 9596 (Purchase now)
P23-4 Investigation on Subjective HRTF Rating Repeatability—Areti Andreopoulou, LIMSI-CNRS - Orsay, France; Brian Katz, LIMSI-CNRS - Orsay, France
This paper investigates the repeatability of an HRTF evaluation protocol, assessing the spatial quality of binaural stimuli, moving along pre-defined trajectories on the horizontal and median planes, on a forced-choice 9-point rating scale. The protocol assessment was based on data simulations and subjective studies. Repeatability was evaluated as a function of the size and content of the HRTF corpus, the trajectories, and the resolution of the rating scale. Analysis of the data revealed that HRTF rating is a reliable, yet challenging task with low repeatability rates of [about] 50%. Therefore participant screening through pre-tests should be used to maximize reliability of the responses.
Convention Paper 9597 (Purchase now)
