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Ambisonic Loudspeaker Arrays

The Ambisonic system is one of very few surround sound systems which offers the promise of reproducing full three-dimensional (periphonic) audio. It can be shown that arrays configured as regular polyhedra can allow the recreation of an accurate sound field at the center of the array. But the regular polyhedric shape can be impractical for real everyday usage because the requirement that the listener have his head located at the center of the array forces the location of the lower speakers to be beneath the floor, or even the location of a loudspeaker directly beneath the listener. This is obviously impracticable, especially in domestic applications. Likewise, it is typically the case that the width of the array is larger than can be accommodated within the room boundaries. The infeasibility of such arrays is a primary reason why they have not been more widely deployed. The intent of this work is to explore the efficacy of alternative array shapes for both horizontal and periphonic reproduction.

Author: Benjamin, Eric
Affiliation: Dolby Laboratories
AES Convention:125 (October 2008) Paper Number:7605 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Loudspeakers

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