Reproduction of Nearby Sound Sources Using Higher-Order Ambisonics with Practical Loudspeaker Arrays
In order to reproduce nearby sound sources with distant loudspeakers to a single listener, the near field compensated (NFC) method for higher-order Ambisonics (HOA) has been previously proposed. In practical realization, this method requires the use of regularization functions. This
study analyzes the impact of two existing and a new proposed regularization function on the reproduced sound fields and on the main auditory cue for nearby sound sources outside the median plane, i.e, low-frequencies interaural level differences (ILDs). The proposed regularization function
led to a better reproduction of point source sound fields compared to existing regularization functions for NFC-HOA. Measurements in realistic playback environments showed that, for very close sources, significant ILDs for frequencies above about 250 Hz can be reproduced with NFC-HOA and the
proposed regularization function whereas the existing regularization functions failed to provide ILDs below 500 Hz. A listening test showed that these lower-frequency ILDs provided by the proposed regularization function lead to a significantly improved distance perception performance. This
test also showed that the distance of virtual sources are perceived less accurately than corresponding physical sources when amplitude cues are not available.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 January 2012
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