Audio Engineering Society UK

Title: Headphone processing for a three-dimensional world
Location: Royal Academy of Engineering, London
Description: Lecture by Ben Supper, Focusrite
Start Time: 18:30 for 19:00 start
Date: Tuesday 13th July 2010

Abstract

The practice of processing audio signals to impose lifelike room acoustics on them for headphone presentation is called auralization. The two most commercially exploited applications of auralisation are the conversion of headphone stereo listening into an experience more like loudspeaker stereo listening, and the simulation of proposed architectural spaces.

Although the tools required for auralization are fairly well understood, experiments that test the response of the human auditory system to spatial cues are generally designed to investigate one changing parameter in complicated sound field, and the way in which stimuli are synthesised is not standardised. These limitations mean that little has been written recently of the ways in which the various parts of the human auditory system interact to experience a spatial illusion presented over headphones.

This talk presents, informally, some observations learned from several years’ experience trying to analyse and deceive the spatial parts of the human auditory system. It discusses how we perceive the spatial cues present in direct sound and reverberation that are central to auralisation, and the most effective and efficient ways of presenting a convincing illusion without causing listening fatigue.