A study on the effect of reflections and reverberation for low-channel-count Transaural systems

Cross-talk cancellation allows for the reproduction of binaural audio through loudspeakers. This uses a digital signal processing network that controls the acoustic pressure at the listener’s ears. Although this can be achieved by using only two drivers, loudspeaker arrays extend the operating frequency range and are more robust against mismatches between nominal and actual transducer transfer functions. This document presents a numerical study on the trade-off between cross-talk cancellation performance and the number of channels of a loudspeaker array in two practical room environments. A third order image source model is used to predict the performance of loudspeaker arrays using 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 speakers. The simulated results show how low-order reflections and the reverberant pressure created by the loudspeaker arrays affect the cross-talk cancellation and the reproduced acoustic pressures. The results show that arrays using 5 sources or more can minimise colouration on the reproduced response and maximise the effectiveness of the cross-talk cancellation over the entire audio frequency range