Immersive sound reinforcement aims to create a balanced perception of sounds arriving from different directions, establishing an impression of envelopment over the audience area. Current perceptual research shows that coverage designs featuring nearly constant decay (0dB per distance doubling) preserve the level balance among audio objects in the mix. In contrast, a -3dB decay supports a more uniform sensation of envelopment, especially for off-center listening positions. For practical reasons, point-source loudspeakers remain widely used for immersive audio playback in mid-sized venues. However, their-6dBlevel decay per distance doubling can conflict with the design goals outlined above. This paper investigates how much perceived difference there is between point-source and line-source setups, using eight surrounding loudspeakers side-by-side covering a 10m x 7m audience area. The perceptual qualities object level balance, spatial definition, and envelopment were compared in a MuSHRA listening experiment, and to explain the results, acoustic measurements were carried out to capture room impulse responses (RIRs) and binaural room impulse responses (BRIRs). To verify that the perceptual results can be reproduced on headphones, BRIRs were used in a follow-up experiment.;Both the loudspeaker and headphone-based experiments confirm the expectation from earlier experiments, but now with dedicated, professional state-of-the-art loudspeakers.
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https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22901
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