Perceptual assessment of binaural decoding of first-order ambisonics

Julian Palacino , Rozenn Nicol , Marc Emerit , Laetitia Gros

The first-order Ambisonics microphone (e.g. Soundfield®) is a both compact and efficient set-up for spatial audio recording with the benefit of a full 3D spatialization. Another advantage is that the signals delivered by this microphone (i.e. B-Format) can be rendered over headphones by applying appropriate processing, while ensuring that the 3D spatial information is preserved. With the growing use of personal devices, it should be considered that most audio content is listened to over headphones. Thus first-order Ambisonics recording provides an attractive solution to pick-up 3D audio content compatible with headphone reproduction. “Binaural decoding” refers to the processing to adapt B-Format for headphone rendering (i.e. “binaural format”). One solution is based on binaural synthesis of virtual loudspeakers. One promising way to improve the decoding is active processing which takes information from a pre-analysis of the sound scene, particularly in terms of spatial information. This paper will compare various binaural decoders. The perceived quality is assessed by a listening test for a set of audio excerpts taken from the sound recording of classical music and which includes solo, trio, chorus, applauses and public ambience.

Mots clés: ambisonics; Binaural; b-format; Perceptual assessment

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Julian Palacino, Rozenn Nicol, Marc Emerit, Laetitia Gros. Perceptual assessment of binaural decoding of first-order ambisonics. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00810918⟩