A Study on Enhancement of 3D Sound Using Improved HRTFs

To perceive the direction and the distance of a sound, we always use a couple of information. Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) contains the information that sound arrives from a sound source to the ears of the listener, like differences of level, phase and frequency spectrum. For a reproduction system using 2 channels, we apply HRTF to many algorithms which make 3d sound. But it causes a problem to localize a sound source around a certain places which is called the cone-of-confusion. In this paper, we proposed the new algorithm to reduce the confusion of sound image localization. The difference of frequency spectrum and psychoacoustics theory are used to boost the spectral cue among each directions. To confirm the performance of the algorithm, informal listening tests are carried out. As a result, we can make the improved 3d sound in 2 channel system based on a headphone. Also sound quality of improved 3d sound is much better than conventional methods.