A new method for the measurement of directional sound arrivals in rooms.

Abstract

In room acoustics, directional measurements have the ability to more fully detail room effects than common nondirectional measurements. The extraction of directional information has been a subject of considerable interest for years and has resulted in the development of several interesting approaches to the problem. However, past methods have often suffered from inaccuracies, difficult implementation, lengthy procedures, extensive computational requirements, or the need for large amounts of equipment. A practical new method will be presented that extracts directional information of sound arrivals through a single multichannel measurement and a new cross-correlation technique. A direct comparison of numerical simulations will demonstrate that the method is more accurate than other well-established methods. Advantages and limitations of the new approach will be discussed.