What can we learn from simulated acoustic environments?

Psychoacoustic research has often used headphones to reproduce sound stimuli. Recently, the spatial dimension has regained attention in basic research. Here I make a case for the importance of binaural hearing when assessing sound quality. Technological advances made it possible to accurately reproduce real and artificial sound stimuli with high spatial fidelity for their assessment. The Simulated Open Field Environment (SOFE) is a laboratory setup to reproduce sounds from multiple loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber. The free-field presentation allows participants to interact with sound stimuli in a natural way using head turns and movements - important when working with participants inexperienced with laboratory procedures. In connection with room simulation software the SOFE can also create acoustic scenes with multiple sources and sound reflections - thereby increasing the realism. The article gives an overview of application areas for simulated acoustic environments, recent findings gained with the SOFE, and it relates them evaluating sound quality.