Engineering Brief
Wave Field Synthesis by Multiple Line Arrays
AES Convention 131 · Paper 35 · October 2011
Abstract
Wave field synthesis (WFS) is a spatial audio rendering technique that produces a physical approximation of wavefronts for virtual sources. Large loudspeaker arrays can simulate a virtual source that exists outside of the listening room. The technique is traditionally limited to the horizontal plane due to the prohibitive cost of planar loudspeaker arrays. Multiple-line-array wave field synthesis is proposed as an extension to linear WFS. This method extends the virtual source space in the vertical direction using a fraction of the number of loudspeakers required for plane arrays. This paper describes a listening test and software environment capable of driving a loudspeaker array according to the proposed extension, as well as the construction of a modular loudspeaker array that can be adapted to multiple-line configurations.
