Room Transfer Function

Abstract

• IntroductionSound, which is an important carrier of information for human communication, propagates in elastic media as waves. A sound wave arriving from a sound source, however, deforms as it travels in a space due to the elastic and geometrical conditions of the medium. A sound wave propagating in a space can be represented by a wave equation and is characterized by the transfer function (TF) between the sound source and receiving positions. This section describes the magnitude and phase characteristics, which represent the sound wave propagating from the sound source, in terms of the poles and zeros of the TF. Although the frequency characteristics in a reverberant space appear too irregular, spatial sound, which is a general term for sound propagating in a space, is necessary for daily communication. Room TF studies are important in processing spatial sound signals to obtain informative, high-quality sound in communication spaces.