Article
How small can a baffled ambisonic microphone array be? (en)
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Microphone arrays for ambisonic audio capture usually employ rigid spherical baffles. The radius of the baffle determines below what frequency the required regularization of the radial filters becomes effective. In other words, the radius determines below what frequency a given spherical harmonic mode cannot be extracted from the microphone signals. The higher the order and the smaller the radius are, the higher is that frequency. It was demonstrated in the literature that it is sufficient if only low-order information is available at low frequencies particularly when binaural reproduction is performed. Yet, it is not known where exactly the limit is. We present a listening experiment in which we investigate the perceptual relevance of the different spherical harmonic modes at low frequencies, which allows for determining the minimum radius for baffled ambisonic microphone arrays.