Products

Demonstrations

Distance Rendering
In 3D audio, distance is often rendered to create the illusion that sounds are not only coming from a particular direction in space, but also from a particular distance. Usually, the method for rendering distance is to analyse the direct sound and add artificial reverberation accordingly. This method, however, does not always create a realistic perception of free field listening and is not appropriate for all acoustic settings, especially those where there is little or no reverberation.

For sounds that are less than 1 m away from the listener (i.e. in the near field), an individual's head related transfer functions (HRTFs) change with respect to the distance and the source. Personal Audio has developed and refined efficient methods of changing the HRTFs with respect to the distance, without having to artificially use reverberation. As a result, a very natural and compelling rendering of sounds is produced for individual listeners.

The following demonstration is an illustration of Personal Audio's realistic distance rendering technology.

 

Cocktail Party Spatialisation
In our natural listening environment, humans are surrounded by a multitude of sounds and spatial hearing plays a vital role in day-to-day activity. It becomes a problem if people are unable to separate the different sound sources and focus their attention on one or another of the sounds - this is known as the "cocktail party" problem.

Hearing the differences in the locations of the sound sources plays a very key role in solving the "cocktail party" problem and allows us to differentially concentrate on a particular sound source (for example, a person speaking in a loud environment, such as a restaurant) and ignore the background sounds. The perception of the 3D sound field gives humans the sense of spatial orientation and general environmental awareness.

The following demonstrations illustrate what is known as the "cocktail party" problem. In listening to these demonstrations, the goal is to try and keep track of what the first speaker is saying.

 

 

 

*To be listened to over headphones