Highly realistic audio spatialization for multiparty conferencing using headphones

Abstract

It is known that during multi-party conferencing spatialized audio which maps remote participants' voices to distinct virtual locations improves the listening experience. In this paper, we consider the case when the audio is rendered through headphones due to e.g. privacy reasons. Although existing headphone spatial audio techniques abound, most lack the desired realism dictated by listeners' expectation of naturalness in audio conferencing. In light of the situation, we propose a novel approach of spatial audio processing for headphones, where we measure the combined head and room impulse responses (CHRIRs) in an actual physical setting which are then directly used to spatialize remote participants' voices. Through proper processing of the CHRIRs, our solution is able to offer a higher degree of realism, closely approximating binaural recordings. We note that the success, however, comes with certain limitations and presented solutions to mitigate the shortcomings of the proposed technique. As a result, a user can adapt the source localization and the degree of reverberation to her own subjective preferences. We also show that the computation load can be effectively reduced and becomes very reasonable for modern computer hardware.