Quantitative Investigation Artificial Room Simulations Reproduced by Channel-Based and Object-Based Surround Sound Systems

The introduction of object-based audio reproduction comes along with new challenges for the sound engineer to record, design, and synthesize reverberant sound fields due to the increased number of speakers and the placement of such. The aim of this paper is to show that several parameter settings from a digital reverberation unit produce contrasting reflectograms in a 5.0 channel-based setup and an object-based setup that can have effects on the perceived reverberant sound field. Conversely, established acoustical metrics derived from the measured room impulse responses (RIRs) in both multichannel reproduction setups do not highlight the differences noticed in the reflectograms. The potential consequences regarding individual system properties and the metrics themselves are discussed in this work.