Immersive sound for gaming and simulation, perhaps more than for music and movies, requires preserving directionality of direct sounds, both fixed and moving, and acoustical reflections dynamically affecting those sounds, to effect the spatiality being presented. Conventionally (as with popular music), sources are panned close-microphone signals or synthesized sounds; the presentation pretends “They are here,” where spatiality is largely that of the listening environment. Convolution with room impulse responses can contribute diffuse ambience but not “real” spatiality and tone color. These issues pertain not only to 5.1 where reproduction is a 2D horizontal circle of speakers, but to advanced 3D interactive reproduction, where the listener perceives the experience at the center of the sphere of natural hearing. Production techniques are introduced that satisfy both 3D and compatible 5.1. Independent measurement confirms that the system preserves directionality and reproduces life-like spatiality and tone color continuously in the 3D perception sphere.
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