The influence of different BRIR modification techniques on externalization and sound quality

In the context of binaural audio, externalization refers to the sensation of virtual sound sources being located outside of the listener's head. Binaural reproduction using anechoic head-related impulse responses is known to suffer from poor externalization. The degree of externalization can be increased by reverberation, as contained in binaural room impulse responses. However, the presence of reverberation is not always desired since the original sound of a recording should usually be preserved. This study concerns the dilemma of creating well-externalized dry-sounding signals. We investigated the manipulation of either the impulse response length, the reverberation time, or the direct-to-reverberant energy ratio regarding externalization and attributes of sound quality. As expected, each condition is a compromise between externalization and sound quality. While externalization increases with increasing amount of reverberation for all methods in a similar way, our findings show that the differences between them lie in sound color and perceived naturalness.