Derivation and Evaluation of Methods for the Creation, Capture, and Reproduction of Reverberation for Sound Field Synthesis

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Möller, since 5/2016
• Subject Area: Acoustics
• Term: from 2014 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 252643808

The present project proposal aims at the design and evaluation of methods for the creation, capture, and playback of reverberation for sound field synthesis. Sound field synthesis is an audio reproduction approach that synthesizes a given desired sound field over an extended listening area by means of a high number of loudspeakers. In contrast to other audio reproduction methods sound field synthesis does not exhibit a pronounced sweet spot, i.e. a homogeneous perception can be achieved over an extended zone. The required high number of loudspeakers (up to several hundreds) leads to the triggering of different perceptual mechanisms compared to conventional audio reproduction methods. The known conventional approaches to the capture and reproduction of reverberation can therefore not be directly employed in sound field synthesis.A prominent property of sound field synthesis is the circumstance that practical limitations lead to the formation of undesired additional wave fronts that succeed the desired one within a short time interval. It may be assumed that the human auditory system cannot discriminate room reflections from these additional wave fronts. Artificial room reflections therefore have to be designed such that they form a perceptually meaningful reflection pattern together with the additional wave fronts. The investigation of this approach is one of the goals of the proposed project. Further goals are the generation and evaluation of diffuse late reverberation over an extended listening zone as well as of room modes.Circular and spherical microphone arrays constitute the only currently available approach to capturing sound fields and thus reverberation with high spatial resolution. It has been shown recently in the literature that additional wave fronts evolve also in this case. Spatial perception might therefore be affected. Various approaches to perceptually optimizing these technologies will be investigated in the course of the proposed project.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr.-Ing. Jens Ahrens, until 4/2016