Dynamic Sound Field Synthesis for Speech and Music Optimization

Abstract

We present a novel acoustic optimization algorithm to synthesize dynamic sound fields in a static scene. Our approach places new active loudspeakers or virtual sources in the scene so that the dynamic sound field in a region satisfies optimization criteria to improve speech and music perception. We use a frequency domain formulation of sound propagation and reduce the computation of dynamic sound field synthesis to solving a linear least squares problem, and do not impose any constraints on the environment or loudspeakers type, or loudspeaker placement. We highlight the performance on complex indoor scenes in terms of speech and music improvements. We evaluate the performance with a user study and highlight the perceptual benefits for virtual reality and multimedia applications.