Elicitation of Salient Attributes of 3D Microphone Arrays in Classical Music Recording

An elicitation experiment was conducted to identify the auditory attributes perceived when comparing different 3D microphone arrays in classical music recordings. Additionally, the audibility of each descriptive term was graded during the listening test to determine salient attributes. The recordings used for the experiment were taken from the 3D-MARCo database: string quartet, piano solo, pipe organ, a cappella group, conga solo and trumpet solo, recorded using four different 3D microphone configurations: OCT-3D, 2L Cube, PCMA-3D with 0m vertical spacing and PCMA-3D with 1m vertical spacing. Furthermore, three listening positions.sweet spot and two off-centre positions) were compared to examine the influence of listening position on perceived differences among the microphone configurations. The audibility indexes were then calculated for each source and listening position by averaging the percentage of occurrences and the percentage of audibility scores. The results indicate a considerable dependency of attribute salience on the type of sound source and listening position. For single sources, localisability and source position were more salient, whereas, for complex sources, listener envelopment was more salient in most conditions. The pipe organ showed a unique trend, with prominent timbral attributes such as fullness and brightness, along with vertical image spread. Regarding the influence of listening position, attributes related to timbral changes, such as clarity, were more audible in the left off-centre position.