The Journal of the Audio Engineering Society — the official publication of the AES — is the only peer-reviewed journal devoted exclusively to audio technology. Published 10 times each year, it is available to all AES members and subscribers.
The Journal contains state-of-the-art technical papers and engineering reports; feature articles covering timely topics; pre and post reports of AES conventions and other society activities; news from AES sections around the world; Standards and Education Committee work membership news, new products, and newsworthy developments in the field of audio.
Editor-in-Chief: Brian F.G. Katz
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Authors: Kuntz, Matthieu; Kaetel, Klaus; Fischer, Dietmar; Seeber, Bernhard U.
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This study investigates the use of dipole loudspeakers in addition to typical two-way loudspeakers arranged as a classical stereo setup in a room. The dipole loudspeakers are placed on top of the two-way loudspeakers, their null oriented toward the listener to only contribute to the reverberant sound, adding strong early reflections. Loudness perception for playback over the two-way loudspeakers only and playback over both the two-way and the dipole loudspeakers were compared using a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm. Different music and noise stimuli, different relative levels between two-way and dipole loudspeakers, and two listener positions in the room were used. Results show that adding the dipole-reproduced sound can increase the perceived loudness despite keeping the sound pressure level constant. That effect can be linked to changes in the resulting spectrum, energy decay, interaural correlation, and spatial perception when adding dipole loudspeakers. A binaural loudness model based on the energy received at both ears but not considering the interaural correlation was used to predict the measured level offsets for equal loudness. The predictions were accurate for most stimuli but failed for impulsive sounds where the room reverberation was more perceptible.
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Authors: Porysek Moreta, Pia Nancy; Bech, Søren; Francombe, Jon; Østergaard, Jan; van de Par, Steven
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This study addresses potential challenges in evaluating reproduction systems with complex, spatially dynamic audio material because current standardized methods may lead to biased or unreliable results. To investigate this, a listening experiment was conducted comparing two assessment methods—continuous and overall evaluation—applied to two attributes, basic audio quality and surrounding, using spatially dynamic content reproduced on two reproduction systems (a stereo and a 3D surround configuration). To enable comparison with overall evaluations, continuous ratings were summarized using different strategies. Although ratings were mainly influenced by the reproduction system, spatial variation, and program item, the choice of evaluation method also had a significant effect on the scores. This effect varied depending on the attribute and the metric used to summarize the continuous data. In cases where differences were observed, continuous evaluations consistently produced higher scores than overall ratings, regardless of the summary metric. These findings indicate that continuous evaluation can capture perceptual variations over time that are lost in overall ratings, suggesting it can be a useful approach when assessing attributes influenced by spatially dynamic changes.
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Authors: Fontana, Marco; Fantini, Davide; Presti, Giorgio; Tiraboschi, Marco; Avanzini, Federico
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Scattering delay networks (SDNs), a class of artificial reverberators with physically interpretable parameters, provide an efficient synthesis of room acoustics accounting for wall absorption properties. This paper builds upon a previously proposed highly parametrized and real-time implementation of an SDN, exposing octave-band absorption coefficients for each room wall. The individual manipulation of these coefficients can be challenging due to their high dimensionality. A 2D parameter space (2PS) is proposed to facilitate the navigation of the absorption coefficients. The 2PS is obtained using principal component analysis as an initial dimensionality reduction of a dataset of absorption coefficients, followed by a relaxation procedure to create a seamless 2D representation of the coefficients. A twofold evaluation of the proposed 2PS was conducted: (a) the 2PS was compared to the original space and the raw principal component analysis in a reverb matching task for the tuning of SDN coefficients, and (b) a usability test with expert audio professionals supported the potential of the 2PS from a user standpoint.
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Authors: Gaus, Johann
When employing a finite impulse response filter for phase correction alongside frequency response compensation, various side effects such as preringing and time-domain coloration can negatively impact perceived audio quality. This paper introduces an optimization strategy for the filter’s phase response, aiming to balance these effects so they remain below the threshold of hearing. The method divides the phase into frequency bands for stable optimization consistent with psychoacoustic principles. The approach is further extended to address application-specific goals, including impulse-response decay, stereo image width, and interchannel matching. In test convolutions based on multiposition room measurements, the proposed optimization reduced early reflections by about 5 dB, confirming its effectiveness in improving spatial clarity.
Authors: Abehsera-Morell, Pablo; Poirier-Quinot, David; Katz, Brian F. G.
In extended reality, dynamic rendering updates the auralization as changes occur in the scene. Directivity is a characteristic that may require dynamic rendering for moving sound sources. This study investigates how the reverberant component of a directional virtual loudspeaker, used as a controlled proxy for a human talker, is perceived as it rotates and whether its directivity contributes to the perceived naturalness of the scene’s acoustics. An experiment was conducted in a virtual environment in which recorded speech and vocal sounds were reproduced through a rotating virtual loudspeaker that was visually overlaid with a human avatar. Four directivity implementations were evaluated: (1) fully measured directivity, (2) direct-sound directivity only, (3) static reproduction without orientation-dependent directivity, and (4) an incongruent inverted-reverberation condition. Participants rated the perceived naturalness of each scene on a seven-point scale. Results indicated that the most physically realistic rendering was perceived as most natural, while partial or incorrect directivity implementations reduced realism. Analysis of the associated acoustic parameters showed that deviations in interaural level difference and direct-to-reverberant ratio were systematically related to changes in perceived naturalness.
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