3D Microphone Array Comparison (3D MARCo): An Open-Access Database and Objective Analyses

Abstract This paper presents open-access 3D sound recordings of musical performances and room impulse responses made using various 3D microphone arrays simultaneously. The microphone arrays include OCT-3D, 2L-Cube, PCMA-3D, Decca Cuboid, Hamasaki Square with height, First-order and Higher-order Ambisonics microphone systems, providing 256 possible front-rear-height combinations. The sound sources recorded were string quartet, piano trio, piano solo, organ, clarinet solo, vocal group and room impulse responses of a virtual ensemble with 13 source positions captured by all of the microphones. The recordings can be freely downloaded from https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3474285. This paper also objectively analyses the microphone arrays to gain insights into spatial and tonal differences among the arrays, which will serve basis for formal subjective comparison to be conducted in the future