Scientific Article

Audibility of reduced spatial resolution in musical instrument directivity

¹ Departments of Music Acoustics – IWK, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1 Vienna 1030 Austria
² Acoustics Lab, Dpt. of Information and Communications Engineering, Aalto University P.O. Box 11110 FI-00076 Aalto Finland

^* Corresponding author: an.corcuera-marruffo@students.mdw.ac.at

Received: 20 December 2024
Accepted: 14 April 2025

Abstract

The directivity of sound sources plays an important role in the generation of auralizations. Researchers have invested a considerable amount of time and effort in generating directivity databases of musical instruments with high levels of detail. However, it is still unclear how precisely these data should be captured and modeled with respect to perception. Therefore, investigating if simplified patterns with lower spatial resolutions are perceptibly different from higher-resolution patterns provides valuable insights into determining the spatial resolution required for perceptually significant measurement and modeling of directivity patterns. In this study, we present a listening test that investigates the spatial resolution of the magnitude of directivity patterns using different spherical harmonic orders of two musical instruments (a trumpet and a flute) in two listener positions and rooms. Apart from changing the resolution for the entire simulation, we also tested hybrid responses for one of the rooms, where the order was modified only for the direct sound or the early reflections.