The Auditory Source Widening Effect in Binaural Synthesis with Spatial Distribution of Frequency Bands

摘要

In this study monophonic source signals were processed by frequency bands decomposition and distribution to achieve spatially widen perceived source widths in binaural synthesis. Stimuli with different widths were synthesized and the perceived widths were evaluated by conducting a listening experiment to investigate the relationship of the perceived width and the synthesis width. Three different bandwidths of frequency bands and two center positions of synthesis widths were used in the processing, and relevant effects on perception of source width were investigated. The results of the listening experiment suggested that under proper processing conditions the perceived width could increase with increasing synthesis widths. However, dependencies of source signal characteristics and between-participant variations were observed. Degradations of timbre and spatial quality were also evaluated. The results suggested that this method suffered less degradation than a conventional decorrelation method while it achieved comparable widening effects for binaural reproduction.