TY - JOUR

T1 - Identification of Discriminative Acoustic Dimensions in Stereo, Surround and 3D Music Reproduction

AU - Bergner, Jakob

AU - Schössow, Daphne

AU - Preihs, Stephan

AU - Peissig, Jürgen

N1 - Funding Information: The authors are thankful for the research grant of the project Richard Wagner 3.0 funded by “Niedersächsisches Vorab,” a joint program by the Volkswagen Foundation in conjunction with the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture (ZN3497). Further thanks goes to our project partners Yves Wycisk and Reinhard Kopiez from the Hanover Music Lab of the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media for their efforts in compiling and revising the stimuli.

PY - 2023/7/10

Y1 - 2023/7/10

N2 - This work is motivated by the question of whether different loudspeaker-based multichannel playback methods can be robustly characterized by measurable acoustic properties. For that, underlying acoustic dimensions were identified that allow for a discriminative sound field analysis within a music reproduction scenario. The subject of investigation is a set of different musical pieces available in different multichannel playback formats. Re-recordings of the stimuli at a listening position using a spherical microphone array enable a sound field analysis that includes, in total, 237 signal-based indicators in the categories of loudness, quality, spaciousness, and time. The indicators are fed to a factor and time series analysis to identify the most relevant acoustic dimensions that reflect and explain significant parts of the variance within the acoustical data. The results show that of the eight relevant dimensions, the dimensions “High-Frequency Diffusivity,” “Elevational Diffusivity,” and “Mid-Frequency Diffusivity” are capable of identifying statistically significant differences between the loudspeaker setups. The presented approach leads to plausible results that are in accordance with the expected differences between the loudspeaker configurations used. The findings may be used for a better understanding of the effects of different loudspeaker configurations on human perception and emotional response when listening to music.

AB - This work is motivated by the question of whether different loudspeaker-based multichannel playback methods can be robustly characterized by measurable acoustic properties. For that, underlying acoustic dimensions were identified that allow for a discriminative sound field analysis within a music reproduction scenario. The subject of investigation is a set of different musical pieces available in different multichannel playback formats. Re-recordings of the stimuli at a listening position using a spherical microphone array enable a sound field analysis that includes, in total, 237 signal-based indicators in the categories of loudness, quality, spaciousness, and time. The indicators are fed to a factor and time series analysis to identify the most relevant acoustic dimensions that reflect and explain significant parts of the variance within the acoustical data. The results show that of the eight relevant dimensions, the dimensions “High-Frequency Diffusivity,” “Elevational Diffusivity,” and “Mid-Frequency Diffusivity” are capable of identifying statistically significant differences between the loudspeaker setups. The presented approach leads to plausible results that are in accordance with the expected differences between the loudspeaker configurations used. The findings may be used for a better understanding of the effects of different loudspeaker configurations on human perception and emotional response when listening to music.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85166741159&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.17743/jaes.2022.0071

DO - 10.17743/jaes.2022.0071

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85166741159

VL - 71

SP - 420

EP - 430

JO - AES: Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

JF - AES: Journal of the Audio Engineering Society

SN - 1549-4950

IS - 7-8

ER -