A Subjective Comparison of Virtual Stereo Microphone Techniques for Rendering Ambisonics
Journal article
Girijavallabhan, A. and Wiggins, B. 2024. A Subjective Comparison of Virtual Stereo Microphone Techniques for Rendering Ambisonics. Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics. 46 (3), pp. 1-16.
| Authors | Girijavallabhan, A. and Wiggins, B. |
|---|---|
| Abstract | Ambisonic spatial audio is often presented to the end user using binaural or multi-speaker (greater than 4) decoding strategies. This paper presents a technique capable of rendering Ambisonics using spaced and near-coincident virtual microphones extracted from 3rd-order Ambisonic recordings. 3rd order decoding filters for the standard stereo configurations of AB (spaced) and ORTF (near coincident) were generated and compared to Blumlein, XY, UHJ and mono decodes using three 3rd-order recordings representing choral, jazz, and classical music. The decoded stimuli were evaluated separately over headphones and loudspeakers for overall preference and 4 spatial attributes – ‘spaciousness’, ‘envelopment’, ‘naturalness’ and ‘balance’. There was no statistically significant preferred choice, but the effect of the decode type combined with the test material was statistically significant. Overall, ORTF exhibited the highest mean preference for both loudspeakers and headphones. No significant correlation was observed between overall preference and the 4 spatial attributes. |
| Keywords | Ambisonics; Stereo; Audio Engineering; Spatial Audio |
| Year | 2024 |
| Journal | Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics |
| Journal citation | 46 (3), pp. 1-16 |
| Publisher | Institute of Acoustics |
| ISSN | 0309-8117 |
| Web address (URL) | https://www.ioa.org.uk/catalogue/paper/subjective-comparison-virtual-stereo-microphone-techniques-rendering-ambisonics |
| Funder | University of Derby |
| Accepted author manuscript | License File Access Level Open |
| Output status | Published |
| Publication dates | |
| Online | 14 Nov 2024 |
| Publication process dates | |
| Accepted | 24 Oct 2024 |
| Deposited | 04 Dec 2024 |
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