Spatial Sound Impression and Precise Localization by Psychoacoustic Sound Field Synthesis

In this paper a psychoacoustic sound field synthesis (pSFS) system for musical applications is presented. It recreates the radiation patterns of musical instruments for an extended listening area. For this purpose several psychoacoustic effects are utilized: Considering the critical bandwidth, the amount of data to be processed can be reduced massively. Applying a “precedence fade” allows for wave fronts to arrive from angles opposing to the virtual source position when regarding the integration time of the auditory system and phenomenons known from the field of auditory scene analysis. A listening test demonstrates that the approach results in a precise source localization together with a spatial sound impression which is known to be the most crucial aspect of the subjective acoustical quality of concert halls. This is achieved even in a reverberant room and with a relatively large distance between loudspeakers compared to other wave field synthesis systems. Implementations in audio systems such as 5.1 or wave field synthesis systems with a large number of loudspeakers are possible.