MOVING THE AMBISONICS SWEET-SPOT BY ADAPTING LOUDSPEAKER EQUALIZATION AND AMBISONICS DECODING

Matthieu Kuntz, Bernhard U. Seeber

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Virtual acoustic environments are becoming a widespread tool in hearing research. Free-field reproduction allows the design of more realistic experiments, where participants can turn their heads and move around without the need for individualized Head-related transfer functions or head tracking. A limitation of commonly used sound field synthesis techniques, in particular Ambisonics, is their decreasing accuracy with increasing distance from the center of the loudspeaker array. While participants can move around in the reproduced sound field, it is not possible to control the sound field they receive at off-center positions to the degree required for hearing research. In this work, we consider a two-dimensional 36-loudspeaker array, where the loudspeakers are typically equalized in the center of the array. We investigate the possibility of moving the Ambisonics sweet-spot by equalizing the loudspeakers at different points inside the loudspeaker array. Simulations show that at least 50% of the sweet-spot size is preserved when moving the equalization point. Adapting the relative loudspeaker positions for the Ambisonics decoding reduces the parallax shift observed in Ambisonics systems.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationForum Acusticum 2023 - 10th Convention of the European Acoustics Association, EAA 2023
PublisherEuropean Acoustics Association, EAA
ISBN (Electronic)9788888942674
StatePublished - 2023
Event10th Convention of the European Acoustics Association, EAA 2023 - Torino, Italy
Duration: 11 Sep 202315 Sep 2023

Publication series

NameProceedings of Forum Acusticum
ISSN (Print)2221-3767

Conference

Conference10th Convention of the European Acoustics Association, EAA 2023
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityTorino
Period11/09/2315/09/23

Keywords

  • Virtual acoustic environment
  • higher-order Ambisonics
  • local sound field synthesis
  • loudspeaker array

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