Spatiogram: A phase based directional angular measure and perceptual weighting for ensemble source width

TL;DR

This paper introduces Spatiogram, a novel measure combining phase-based directional angular analysis and perceptual weighting to assess ensemble source width, improving upon traditional inter-aural cross-correlation methods in concert hall acoustics.

Contribution

It develops a new objective measure for perceptual ensemble source width that integrates a phase-based spatial measure with a perceptual timbral weight, enhancing accuracy for distributed sources.

Findings

The new measure is more valid for distributed sources than IACC.

It effectively separates spatial and timbral contributions to source width.

The approach can be extended to evaluate auditory source width and listener envelopment.

Abstract

In concert hall studies, inter-aural cross-correlation (IACC), which is signal dependent, is used as a measure of perceptual source width. The same measure is used for perceptual source width in the case of distributed sources also. In this work, we examine the validity of IACC for both the cases and develop an improved measure for ensemble-like distributed sources. We decompose the new objective measure for perceptual ensemble source width (ESW) into two components (i) phase based directional angular measure, which is timbre independent (spatial measure) and (ii) mean time-bandwidth energy (MTBE), a perceptual weight, (timbre measure). This combination of spatial and timbral measures can be extended as an alternate measure for determining auditory source width (ASW) and listener envelopment (LEV) of arbitrary signals in concert-hall and room acoustics.