AES Fall Online Convention

In order to exploit strengths and avoid weaknesses of the First Order Ambisonics (FOA) microphone technique, we devised a new, portable 3D microphone recording technique (``W-Ambisonics''). This new technique incorporates a stereo cardioid microphone pair (for frontal information) with two FOA microphone arrays (for lateral, rear, and height information). The design focus of this technique was ``accessibility'' in the recording stage and ``scalability'' in the reproduction stage. Our proposed portable 3D recording technique enables audio reproduction over multiple configurations including immersive platforms.
First, we evaluated lateral localization of the proposed method compared with a conventional 5-channel surround microphone technique. Second, we devised a new binauralization method utilizing two interaural-distant FOA microphone arrays for headphone-based reproduction. Each FOA microphone array renders precise spherical harmonics at each ear position. Lastly, we made a solo piano recording using 5-channel surround technique, 7-channel immersive technique (5-channel plus two height channels), and the ``W-Ambisonic'' array, and subsequently conducted subjective listening evaluations of the sound qualities of the two techniques. The results of our study show that (1) the ``W-Ambisonics'' method enables improved lateral localization over the conventional spaced array technique; (2) the binauralized headphone translation from the ``W-Ambisonics'' recording provided spacious yet precise sound images in listening evaluations; and (3) the ``W-Ambisonics'' recording produced comparable sound quality to the 7-channel recording technique for immersive experience of the concert hall. The proposed ``W-Ambisonics'' microphone technique is practical, precise, and scalable across multiple reproduction scenarios, from binaural to multichannel systems.