Expert Session: EXP-1: Immersive Audio via Headphones: State of the Art and New Developments

Since more than 40 years researchers have tried to deliver truly immersive sound via headphones. Until very recently, all the proposals to deliver spatial audio via headphones have fallen short of their promises. Basic research at TU Ilmenau and other universities has given us a deeper insight into how the ears and the brain work while we are listening to sounds in a room. These results brought a massive improvement to binaural reproduction methods. The talk will give a short overview over the techniques which have been used in the last decades. It will elaborate on all the cues used to improve listening with headphones including HRTF (Head Related Transfer Functions), BRIR (Binaural Room Impulse Responses) and room simulation techniques. It will then discuss quality parameters for binaural listening - including externalization of sounds. The emphasis will be on improved techniques (current state of the art) and how these will enable much better spatial reproduction. Future concepts of headphones will incorporate additional sensors to track the head and body position of listeners. Together with knowledge about the room the listener is in, this enables a much more plausible reproduction of virtual sound sources. In conclusion this makes true Auditory Augmented Reality applications possible. The talk will shed a light on the different technical issues which still have to be solved to sell consumer headphones which enable immersive sound. Finally, future products by Brandenburg Labs GmbH will be presented. Among them is the vision of PARty (Personalized Auditory Reality). These devices will combine truly transparent audio (you don�??t even realize you got headphones on your ear) with selective noise cancelling. They can bring in amplified real and virtual sound sources, all adapted to your current environment. The idea is to improve and personalize hearing for everybody even in difficult noisy environments like a party.