Audibility Thresholds of Spatial Variations in a Single Acoustic Reflection

When recording impulse responses of a concert hall for later processing in a spatial audio reproduction system such as Wave Field Synthesis (WFS), the question arises in how far these impulse responses can be used for different source positions without a loss in spatial perception. A preliminary study has been carried out to find the threshold of audibility of spatial variations in the position of a single reflection. It was found that the minimum audible spatial variation of a single reflection is 1 ? 2 m, or 5 ? 10 degrees, depending on the spatial configuration, and whichever is the largest. From that result preliminary conclusions can be drawn about the necessary resolution in recording and synthesis of reflection patterns for WFS rendering or other spatial reproduction systems.