S3A: Future Spatial Audio for an Immersive Listener Experience at Home

Media device orchestration for immersive spatial audio reproduction (2017)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Whilst it is possible to create exciting, immersive listening experiences with current spatial audio technology, the required systems are generally difficult to install in a standard living room. However, in any living room there is likely to already... Read More about Media device orchestration for immersive spatial audio reproduction.

A user-centered taxonomy of factors contributing to the listener experience of reproduced audio (2017)
Journal Article
Woodcock, J., Davies, W., & Cox, T. (2017). A user-centered taxonomy of factors contributing to the listener experience of reproduced audio. ˜The œJournal of the Acoustical Society of America (Online), 141(5), 3464-3464. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4987193

The traditional paradigm for the assessment of audio quality is that of a listener positioned in the geometric center of a standardized loudspeaker setup, fully attending to the reproduced sound scene. However, this is not how listeners generally int... Read More about A user-centered taxonomy of factors contributing to the listener experience of reproduced audio.

Evaluation of spatial audio reproduction methods (part 2) : analysis of listener preference (2017)
Journal Article
Francombe, J., Brookes, T., Mason, R., & Woodcock, J. (2017). Evaluation of spatial audio reproduction methods (part 2) : analysis of listener preference. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 65(3), 212-225. https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2016.0071

A paired-comparison preference rating experiment was performed in combination with a free-elicitation task for eight reproduction methods (consumer and professional systems with a wide range of expected quality) and seven program items (representativ... Read More about Evaluation of spatial audio reproduction methods (part 2) : analysis of listener preference.

Object-based reverberation for spatial audio (2017)
Journal Article
Coleman, P., Franck, A., Jackson, P., Hughes, R., Remaggi, L., & Melchior, F. (2017). Object-based reverberation for spatial audio. Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 65(1/2), 66-77. https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2016.0059

Object-based audio is gaining momentum as a means for future audio content to be more immersive, interactive, and accessible. Recent standardization developments make recommendations for object formats; however, the capture, production, and reproduct... Read More about Object-based reverberation for spatial audio.

A cognitive framework for the categorisation of auditory objects in urban soundscapes (2017)
Journal Article

Categorisation is a fundamental cognitive process that plays a central role in
everyday behaviour and action. Whereas previous studies have investigated the
categorisation of isolated everyday sounds, this paper presents an experiment to
investiga... Read More about A cognitive framework for the categorisation of auditory objects in urban soundscapes.

A metric for predicting binaural speech intelligibility in stationary noise and competing speech maskers (2016)
Journal Article

One criterion in the design of binaural sound scenes in audio production is the extent to which the intended speech message is correctly understood. Object-based audio broadcasting systems have permitted sound editors to gain more access to the metad... Read More about A metric for predicting binaural speech intelligibility in stationary noise and competing speech maskers.

Predicting binaural speech intelligibility from signals estimated by a blind source separation algorithm (2016)
Presentation / Conference
Liu, Q., Tang, Y., Jackson, P., & Wang, W. (2016, September). Predicting binaural speech intelligibility from signals estimated by a blind source separation algorithm. Presented at 17th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 2016, San Francisco, USA

State-of-the-art binaural objective intelligibility measures (OIMs) require individual source signals for making intelligibility predictions, limiting their usability in real-time online operations. This limitation may be addressed by a blind source... Read More about Predicting binaural speech intelligibility from signals estimated by a blind source separation algorithm.

Evaluating a distortion-weighted glimpsing metric for predicting binaural speech intelligibility in rooms (2016)
Journal Article

A distortion-weighted glimpse proportion metric (BiDWGP) for predicting binaural speech intelligibility were evaluated in simulated anechoic and reverberant conditions, with and without a noise masker. The predictive performance of BiDWGP was compare... Read More about Evaluating a distortion-weighted glimpsing metric for predicting binaural speech intelligibility in rooms.

Determining and labeling the preference dimensions of spatial audio replay
Presentation / Conference
Francombe, J., Brookes, T., Mason, R., & Woodcock, J. Determining and labeling the preference dimensions of spatial audio replay. Presented at QoMEX 2016, Lisbon, Portugal

There are many spatial audio reproduction systems currently in domestic use (e.g. mono, stereo, surround sound, sound bars, and headphones). In an experiment, pairwise pref-erence magnitude ratings for a range of such systems were collected from trai... Read More about Determining and labeling the preference dimensions of spatial audio replay.

R2SPIN : re-recording the Revised Speech Perception in Noise Test
Presentation / Conference
Ward, L., Robinson, C., Paradis, M., Tucker, K., & Shirley, B. R2SPIN : re-recording the Revised Speech Perception in Noise Test. Presented at 20th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association

Speech in noise tests are an important clinical and research toolfor understanding speech perception in realistic, adverse listen-ing conditions. Though relatively simple to implement, theirdevelopment is time and resource intensive. As a result,... Read More about R2SPIN : re-recording the Revised Speech Perception in Noise Test.