Spatial audio processes (SAPs) commonly encountered in consumer audio reproduction systems are known to produce a range of impairments to spatial quality. By way of two listening tests, this paper investigated the degree of degradation of the spatial quality of six 5-channel audio recordings resulting from 48 such SAPs. Perceived degradation also depends on the particular listeners, the program content, and the listening location. For example, combining off-center listener with another SAP can reduce spatial quality significantly when compared to listening to that SAP from a central location. The choice of the SAP can have a large influence on the degree of degradation. Taken together these findings and the quality-annotated database can guide the development of a regression model of perceived overall spatial audio quality, incorporating previously developed spatially-relevant feature-extraction algorithms. The results can guide the development of an artificial-listener-based evaluation system.

Authors: Conetta, Robert; Brookes, Tim; Rumsey, Francis; Zielinski, Slawomir; Dewhirst, Martin; Jackson, Philip; Bech, Søren; Meares, David; George, Sunish
Affiliations: University of Surrey, Guildford, UK; Sandy Brown Associates LLP, UK; Logophon Ltd., Oxfordshire, UK; The Technical Schools, Suwalki, Poland; Bang & Olufsen a / s, Strüer, Denmark; DJM Consultancy, West Sussex, UK; BBC Research, UK; Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH, Germany(See document for exact affiliation information.)
JAES Volume 62 Issue 12 pp. 831-846; December 2014
Publication Date: January 5, 2015 Import into BibTeX
Permalink: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=17557

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2014.0048

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