Special Section on Acoustic Scene Analysis and Reproduction

We are surrounded by sounds in our daily lives. To achieve a rich acoustic environment for the next generation, acoustical scene analysis and reproduction technologies are essential. The acoustic scene can be analyzed with cutting edge techniques such as source localization, source separation, dereverberation, noise reduction, and it can be reproduced by employing virtual acoustics via loudspeakers or headphones. These techniques form the core of the state-of-the-art acoustic signal processing and are indispensable to the realization of future communication via for both man-machine and human-human interfaces.