Reverberation has always been considered of primary importance in order to improve the realism, externalization and immersiveness of binaurally spatialized sounds. Different techniques exist for implementing reverberation in a binaural context, each with a different level of computational complexity and spatial accuracy. A perceptual study has been performed in order to compare between the realism and localization accuracy achieved using five different binaural reverberation techniques. These included multichannel Ambisonic-based, stereo and mono reverberation methods. A custom web-based application has been developed implementing the testing procedures and allowing participants to take the test remotely. Initial results with 54 participants show that no major difference in terms of perceived level of realism and spatialization accuracy could be found between four of the five proposed reverberation methods, suggesting that a high level of complexity in the reverberation process does not always correspond to improved perceptual attributes.

Authors: Picinali, Lorenzo; Wallin, Alexander; Levtov, Yuli; Poirier-Quinot, David
Affiliations: Imperial College London, London, UK; Reactify Music, London, UK(See document for exact affiliation information.)
AES Convention: 142 (May 2017) Paper Number: 9742
Publication Date: May 11, 2017 Import into BibTeX
Subject: Room Acoustics: Sound Field Simulation and Generation
Permalink: http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=18618

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