> I am new to the area of ambisonics and sound fields, so please forgive me > if my questions are naive. > > I am looking to create a Listening Room to simulate different "real life > listening situations" as realistically as possible. The purpose is for > testing and optimizing modern day hearing technology
There's a list member, Eric, who must be one or two years ahead of you (though IIRC mainly cochlear implants). Suggest you look up his posts and/or contact him. > 2. In addition to using Ambisonics, I also need a speaker array that would > also allow me to do localization testing using a signal from a single > speaker at a time. In principle you can create a virtual speaker 'anywhere' with ambisonics. So you need to weigh up virtual v. real as a technique > 3. If I did have "too many" horizontal speakers, I imagine I don't > necessarily have to use all the speakers for Ambisonic playback? No, nobody need know they are there ;-)> Indeed I've seen a room where the speakers (in a horizontal band) were behind 'cloth' in the wall ... so no risk of 'clues' to the listener. > 4. I don't know whether I need to consider placing speakers above (and > below) the horizontal plane for the purposes I described above. It would > obviously be more realistic, but noticeably so? If so, how many? If you want 3-D you will have to. Minimum for first order is 8 in a cube. First order may not be precise enough for you. On the other hand with a TetraMic you will only get first order. However you can massage first order to higher order (?Harpex ... but IIRC only horizontal). > 7. I was planning on recording listening situations using a TetraMic. From > what I understand, I would use something like a Motu 4Pre to get the sound > into a MacBook Pro (although that all sounds not very portable), ?Tascam DR-680 Eight Channel Portable Digital Audio Recorder see the TetraMic site ... > then use > software such as Reaper with ambisonics plugins (Blue Ripple Sound?) to > create sound files with the correct encoding on. But then I'm stuck� do I > play those sound files through special software, or do I play them through > something like iTunes? You need to decode them to speaker feeds IMHO on Mac, Fons' AmbDec is your friend. You can feed the output direct (via Jack) to your speakers ... or you can save it to a multi-channel file and play it back how you like. The Motu Traveller allows for 8 channels playback direct, or if you use ADAT as well and a (?cheap Boehringer) ADAT to analogue 'card' you can 16 ... you can a few more (I seem to remember) by using the headphone 'out' and a few other sockets it has .... Look at Digtal Room Correction (which does not correct the room, but the 'corrects' the sound _for_ the room). Jörn Nettingsmeier has a nice slide show on the Web, on that. Just a few quick unresearched comments on a Sunday afternoon. Don't invest money based on them ;-)> But am sure that other list members will 'qualify' anything that is a bit dubious ... Good luck, Michael _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
