How Important is the Reproduction Technique for the Perception of Spaciousness in Music?

2016

Sound fields are preferred when spaciousness is perceived. “Spaciousness means that auditory events, in a characteristic way, are themselves perceived as being spread out in an extended region of space”. The author’s former study (2012) investigated the perception of spaciousness of five musical genres. Participants evaluated spaciousness while listening to music with loudspeakers. Resulting, these genres allowed classifications of spatial features such as “big”, “wide” and “open”. A new idea of conducting listening tests has arisen using wave field synthesis instead of headphones. Firstly, this study aims to reveal the perceptional characteristics of spaciousness in music itself with headp…