Signal Processing, Acoustics, and Psychoacoustics for High Quality Desktop Audio

Integrated media workstations are increasingly being used for creating, editing, and monitoring sound that is associated with video or computer-generated images. While the requirements for high quality reproduction in large-scale systems are well understood, these have not yet been adequately translated to the workstation environment. In this paper we discuss several factors that pertain to high quality sound reproduction at the desktop including acoustical and psychoacoustical considerations, signal processing requirements, and the importance of dynamically adapting the reproduced sound as the listener’s head moves. We present a desktop audio system that incorporates several novel design requirements and integrates vision-based listener-tracking for accurate spatial sound reproduction. We conclude with a discussion of the role the pinnae play in immersive (3D) audio reproduction and present a method of pinna classification that allows users to select a set of parameters that closely match their individual listening characteristics.