AES Dublin 2019
Engineering Brief EB01
EB01 - Spatial Audio and Acoustics
Wednesday, March 20, 16:15 — 17:45 (Meeting Room 3)
Chair:
Piotr Majdak, Austrian Academy of Sciences - Vienna, Austria
EB01-1 Extracting Directional Sound for Ambisonics Mix—Pei-Lun Hsieh, Ambidio - Los Angeles, CA, USA; Tsai-Yi Wu, Ambidio
Ambisonics Audio has become the primary format to transmit and reproduce audio in immersive or interactive content including 360 video and virtual reality due to its flexibility to be decoded to various speaker configuration and listener’s orientation. However, one of the drawbacks of encoding a sound field to Ambisonics audio is the loss of its spatial precision. Higher order Ambisonics has been developed to use more channels in exchange of better precision. In this brief we present a method to detect and extract directional sound from an encoded Ambisonics mix. Improved extraction of the directional signal can improve the performance of other systems, for example the spatial precision during reconstruction.
Engineering Brief 491 (Download now)
EB01-2 Height Channel Signal Level in Immersive Audio—How Much Is Enough?—Richard King, McGill University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Brett Leonard, BLP Audio - Richmond Heights, MO, USA; Jack Kelly, McGill University - Montreal, QC, Canada
Is there an appropriate level for the height channels in an immersive/3D presentation of recorded music when those channels are used speci?cally for ambience or spatial information? This paper describes an interactive listening test in which expert listeners were directed to manipulate and set the level for four height channels in the upper ring of a 9.1 channel 3D mix (traditional 5.1 surround sound with the addition of four height channels; front L/R, and rear L/R). Stimuli consisted of three musical excerpts—solo piano, string trio, and orchestra. Results were analyzed for mean level and overall variance as a measure of consistency of level set over multiple trials.
Engineering Brief 492 (Download now)
EB01-3 MPEG Surround Encoder with Steganography Feature for Data Hiding Based on LSB Method—Ikhwana Elfitri, Andalas University - Padang, Sumatera Barat, Indonesia; Doni Nursyam, Universitas Andalas - Padang, Indonesia; Ministry of Information and Communication - Banda Aceh Branch Office, Indonesia; Rahmadi Kurnia, Universitas Andalas - Padang, Indonesia; Baharuddin, Universitas Andalas - Padang, Indonesia
Spatial audio coding becomes more important for future audio technology as the Ultra High Definition TV (UHDTV) is ready to enter the market, which is particularly pioneered by engineers in Japan. In this work a method of audio data hiding (steganography) is proposed to be integrated in an MPEG Surround (MPS) encoder, a standard based on the principle of spatial audio coding. A new Reverse One-To-Two (R-OTT) module is introduced with a capability of hiding a short important and secret data or information. This information is embedded in the least signi?cant bit (LSB) of the spatial parameter of the MPS bit stream. The experiments show that the embedding data do not significantly decrease the quality of the transmitted audio signals.
Engineering Brief 493 (Download now)
EB01-4 Consideration on the Design of Multi-Zone Control System in a Vehicle Cabin—Wan-Ho Cho, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) - Daejeon, Korea, Republic of; Ji-Ho Chang, Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) - Daejeon, Korea
The personal audio system to generate different sound conditions for each seat in a vehicle cabin is the representative application of multi-zone sound field control. Here, the effectiveness validation of source positions and the robustness of estimated solutions are investigated for the design of a multi-zone control system in a vehicle cabin. To quantify the efficiency of source position, the linear independency test of transfer matrix between the candidate positions of sources and listener is conducted, and an efficient position is selected by the quantified value estimated by the effective independence method. The dummy head source system is applied to measure the transfer matrix efficiently. With the properly selected source positions, it is observed that the control performance is prominent and robust.
Engineering Brief 494 (Download now)
EB01-5 Violin Sound Characteristics by its Predominant Formant Frequency Changes—Ewa Lukasik, Poznan University of Technology - Poznan, Poland
The goal of this Engineering Brief is to make an insight into the dynamics of violin resonances frequency change while playing the instrument. It was inspired by the experiments of Tai and Chung performed on the individual violin sounds of a scale and associated them with formants of human singing voices. The excerpt of the “Sarabande from Partita d-minor” BWV 1004 by Johann Sebastian Bach has been analyzed from the point of view of its predominant formants within 0–5 kHz band. Violin sounds from AMATI database have been used in experiments.
Engineering Brief 495 (Download now)
EB01-6 Room & Architectural Acoustics—A New Approach to the Design & Delivery of Critical Acoustic Facilities—Jim Dunne, Smart Studio - Dublin, Ireland
There has never been more demand for high quality audio studio facilities than there is today. The growth in music recording and production, sound for picture, and gaming are among the areas that are showing increasing demand for accurate studio acoustics. While equipment has improved in performance terms with significant reductions in cost; the approach to designing and building a professional recording/mixing room is unchanged since the 1970s. However, the demands on facilities to provide fully calibrated and accurate acoustic environments does not allow for the outdated, traditional methods of designing and building critical audio facilities. Time to move on!
Engineering Brief 496 (Download now)