Virtual Microphone Technique for Binauralization for Multiple Sound Images on 2–Channel Stereo Signals Detected by Microphones Mounted Closely

Because inter–channel time differences (ICTDs) between signals detected by real microphones mounted close to each other are much smaller than inter–aural time differences (ITDs) for sound image localization, sound images are localized at azimuths different from those of sound sources. In this paper, we propose a virtual microphone technique, which simulates binaural signals by equalizing ICTDs to ITDs, to localize sound images at azimuths of the sound sources with reference to the real microphones. Binaural signals simulated by the proposed method were examined objectively and subjectively by tests on two-sound-image localization. The tests revealed that the two sound images were localized at azimuths of the sound sources with reference to the real microphones.