Spatial Sound Field Reproduction Systems for Cabin Noise in Rail Vehicles: Performance Evaluation Based on Sound Quality Indices

Hong J, Song W, Lee Y, Koh HI. Spatial Sound Field Reproduction Systems for Cabin Noise in Rail Vehicles: Performance Evaluation Based on Sound Quality Indices. In: Express Paper. Audio Engineering Society; 2026.pp. 455:1-. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23268

@inproceedings{Hong2026_23268,
  author = {Hong, Jiyoung and Song, Wooseok and Lee, Yonghee and Koh, Hyo-In},
  title = {{Spatial Sound Field Reproduction Systems for Cabin Noise in Rail Vehicles: Performance Evaluation Based on Sound Quality Indices}},
  pages = {455:1-},
  year = {2026},
  month = may,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Spatial Sound Field Reproduction Systems for Cabin Noise in Rail Vehicles: Performance Evaluation Based on Sound Quality Indices
AU  - Hong, Jiyoung
AU  - Song, Wooseok
AU  - Lee, Yonghee
AU  - Koh, Hyo-In
SP  - 1
M1  - Paper 455
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/28
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=23268
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Innovative railway vehicle systems such as high-speed rail, maglev, and emerging transportation concepts are expected to reduce conventional noise sources related to wheelrail and aerodynamic interactions. As these changes alter the acoustic characteristics inside railway cabins, reliable laboratory reproduction of interior noise becomes increasingly important for evaluating passenger acoustic comfort and guiding sound design during vehicle development. This paper presents a spatial sound field reproduction platform for railway cabin noise based on ambisonic recording and multichannel loudspeaker playback. The system enables controlled laboratory reproduction of in-situ interior sound fields under repeatable conditions and supports both objective and perceptual evaluation. The study focuses on practical methods for assessing reproduction accuracy. Conventional validation of reproduced sound fields typically relies on sound pressure level and spectral matching; however, these metrics alone may not fully reflect perceptually relevant differences between in-situ and reproduced environments. In this work, sound quality indices are employed as complementary evaluation metrics to examine whether reproduced sound fields maintain perceptually meaningful characteristics of the original cabin noise. Comparisons between in-situ recordings and reproduced sound fields were conducted in terms of overall sound pressure level, frequency characteristics, and selected sound quality indices. In addition, the influence of perceptual sound quality indices as complementary evaluation criteria was examined. The results show that sound quality based evaluation provides useful additional information for assessing perceptual fidelity and for optimizing spatial sound reproduction systems for railway cabin noise. The proposed reproduction platform supports laboratory-based assessment of interior railway noise and provides a practical framework for perceptually informed acoustic evaluation and noise control during the design of next-generation railway vehicles.
ER  -