Abstract:

In multimedia systems, the sound is often presented with reduced bandwith. As 3-D sound is introduced, this might give rise to localization problems, a consequence which is partly confirmed by this investigation. A listening experiment was made, in which 12 subjects participated. The subjects were placed in an anechoic room in a setup with 17 loudspeakers placed in different directions. As a reference experiment the subjects listened to a pink noise signal played from one loudspeaker at a time. The subjects were asked to point out the loudspeaker from which they perceived the sound. In eight other experiments the sound was low-pass filtered at frequencies of 1, 2, 4, or 8 kHz, or high-pass filtered at 0.5, 1, 2, or 4 kHz. The procedure was the same as in the reference experiment. For each subject the order of the tests was randomized. The experiment showed that all four low-pass filtered signals gave an increase in localization errors. This was not the case with the high-pass filtered signals.