Synthetic soundfields for the rating of spatial perceptions

This paper focusses on new listening tests and their results for the quanti ties apparent source width (ASW) and listener envelopment (LEV). In these t ests, binaurally recorded sound fields are compared to synthetic sound fiel ds. These synthetic sound fields can be fitted in real-time to the sound fi eld under test by the test person. Thus the sound fields under test can be measured absolutely for ASW and in relation to the synthetic sound field in case of LEV. Investigations on the suitability of the synthetic sound fiel ds and test signals for the rating of ASW and LEV have been made. The resul ts of these investigations lead to limits for ASW and LEV as single number quantities for the characterization of sound fields in rooms. For listening tests concerning spatial hearing, binaural recording techniques are state of the art even though different recording and playback techniques led to b etter or worse localization abilities of the test persons. Therefore record ings from three different artificial heads are compared. Playback with head phones sometimes evoke in-the-head localization and front-to-back inversion s which are said to appear less frequent for sound field reproduction via c rosstalk-cancellation. In order to examine these influences the listening t ests were made with both, equalized headphones and cross-talk-cancellation (CTC) techniques. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.