Perceptual evaluation of binaural rendering and stereo width control in headphone reproduction
Two-channel stereophonic sound reproduction is one of the most important issues in audio engineering. Most of stereo music sources, however, cannot naturally reproduce spatial impression through earphones and headphones. Binaural rendering techniques that convolve head-related impulse responses into the original stereo sources are the candidate for the solutions to such problems. In this study, perceptual characteristics of the binaural rendering are investigated compared with the stereo width control which shrinks the perceptual spatial width by adding the monaural signal. It is confirmed that the binaural rendering has an advantage in reproducing the spatial impression related to the whole sound field. On the other hand, the stereo width control is suitable for naturally characterizing the spatial attributes for individual sound sources.
Authors: Yui Ueno (Kyushu Institute of Technology), Mistunori Mizumachi (Kyushu Institute of Technology) and Toshiharu Horiuchi (KDDI Research, Inc.)
