Investigation into the impact of 3D surround systems on spatial audio quality

Power, P; Davies, WJ; Hirst, J; Dunn, C

Abstract

Current 2D surround systems have benefitted from years of research which has helped identify attributes related to listener preference. Now with high definition visuals, 3D cinema, there is a need to further develop spatial audio systems. One method would be with the addition of height channels, however it is unknown how this will impact on the listening experience and more importantly the spatial audio quality. This project seeks to investigate the spatial capabilities of number of different loudspeaker configurations which include stereo, 2D surround systems, and 3D systems focussing on the attribute envelopment. An initial computer simulation of a number of 2D and 3D surround systems utilising de-correlated white noise signal and using a measurement closely related to the human perception of spaciousness, IACC (inter-aural cross correlation) was used identifying variations in IACC between systems. The 8 systems tested in the simulation were then used in a subjective experiment again driving each speaker in the 2 and 3D arrays with independent de-correlated noise, where it was found that there were no significant differences between the 2D and 3D surround systems in terms of envelopment. A strong negative correlation was found between the objective measure and the subjective scores.

Citation

Power, P., Davies, W., Hirst, J., & Dunn, C. (2013, November). Investigation into the impact of 3D surround systems on spatial audio quality. Presented at Reproduced Sound, Manchester

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: Reproduced Sound
• Conference Location: Manchester
• Start Date: Nov 12, 2013
• End Date: Nov 14, 2013
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Nov 21, 2013
• Publisher URL: http://www.ioa.org.uk/publications/publications-shop.asp?cat=9999
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference; Funders : Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)