Influence of the Quality of Consumer Headphones in the Perception of Spatial Audio

Abstract

High quality headphones can generate a realistic sound immersion reproducing binaural recordings. However, most people commonly use consumer headphones of inferior quality, as the ones provided with smartphones or music players. Factors, such as weak frequency response, distortion and the sensitivity disparity between the left and right transducers could be some of the degrading factors. In this work, we are studying how these factors affect spatial perception. To this purpose, a series or perceptual tests have been carried out with a virtual headphone listening test methodology. The first experiment focuses on the analysis of how the disparity of sensitivity between the two transducers affects the final result. The second test studies the influence of the frequency response relating quality and spatial impression. The third test analyzes the effects of distortion using a Volterra kernels scheme for the simulation of the distortion using convolutions. Finally, the fourth tries to relate the quality of the frequency response with the accuracy on azimuth localization. The conclusions of the experiments are: the disparity between both transducers can affect the localization of the source; the perception of quality and spatial impression has a high correlation; the distortion produced by the range of headphones tested at a fixed level does not affect the perception of binaural sound; and that some frequency bands have an important role in the front-back confusions.

Real-time adaptive equalization for headphone listening

“…5(b)). The latter was chosen, since the perceived quality of the frequency response as well as its smoothness affects the size of the perceived space [16].…”

Health Monitoring on the Spacecraft Bearings in High-Speed Rotating Systems by Using the Clustering Fusion of Normal Acoustic Parameters

“…It can be seen that there are more excitation components at the range of 600 Hz~4000 Hz, including the resonance frequency components that do not change with the rotation speed and the harmonic components that change with the rotation speed. Moreover, these resonant frequencies are not only in the range of resonant frequencies of the bearings but also in the range of frequencies that the human hearing is sensitive to [20]. This is why some faults in MWAs and CMGs can be detected by engineers with experience.…”

Perception of nonlinear distortion on emulation of frequency responses of headphones

“…With these parameters, a virtual headphone listening test has been performed, comparing samples of the headphone emulation with and without non-linear distortion. A much simpler test included in a previous work of the authors, which considered just direct non-linear distortion at one reproduction level, 7 motivated this more in-depth and rigorous study.…”