AES Europe 2025: Full Schedule

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9:15am CEST

Investigating Individual, Loudness-Dependent Equalization Preferences in Different Driving Sound Conditions

Friday May 23, 2025 9:15am - 9:35am CEST

In automotive audio playback systems, dynamically increasing driving sounds are typically taken into account by applying a generic, i.e., non-individualized, increase in overall level and low-frequency amplification to compensate increased masking. This study investigated the degree of individuality regarding the preferences of noise-dependent level and equalizer settings. A user study with 18 normal-hearing participants was conducted in which individually preferred level-dependent and frequency-dependent amplification parameters were determined using a music-based procedure in quiet and in nine different driving noise conditions. The comparison of self-adjusted parameters suggested that, on average, participants adjusted higher overall levels and more low-frequency amplification in noise than in quiet. However, preferred self-adjusted levels differedmarkedly between participants for the same listening conditions but were quite similar in a re-test session for each participant, indicating that individual preferences were stable and could be reproducibly measured with the employed personalization scheme. Furthermore, the impact of driving noise on individually preferred settings revealed strong interindividual differences, indicating that listeners can differ widely with respect to their individual optimum of how equalizer and level settings should be dynamically adapted to changes in driving conditions.

Speakers

Jan Rennies

Head of Group Personalized Hearing Systems, Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT

I am headin´g a group at Fraunhofer IDMT dedicated to developing new solutions for better communication, hearing, and hearing health in various applications together with partners from industry and academia. I am particularly interested in networking and exploring opportunities for... Read More →

Andreas Volgenandt

Sina Buchholz

Tobias Bruns

Christian Rollwage

Jens-E. Appell

Friday May 23, 2025 9:15am - 9:35am CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Automotive Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

9:35am CEST

Subjective test of loudspeaker virtualization

Friday May 23, 2025 9:35am - 9:55am CEST

In this contribution we present subjective tests of loudspeaker virtualization, a technique enabling the application of specific target behaviors to the physical loudspeaker system. In this work, loudspeaker virtualization is applied to virtualize a closed box car audio subwoofer to replicate the performance of a larger vented enclosure. The tests are designed to determine if any reduction in sound quality is detected by a panel of listeners when a virtualized loudspeaker is used.

Speakers

Camillo Di Antonio

Matteo Acerbi

Lucio Bianchi

Friday May 23, 2025 9:35am - 9:55am CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Automotive Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

9:55am CEST

Objective measurements for basic sound quality and special audio features in cars

Friday May 23, 2025 9:55am - 10:15am CEST

Car audio systems aim to provide information, entertainment, and acoustic comfort to drivers and passengers in cars. In addition to basic audio functions for broadcasting, playing chimes, warning sound, and music, there are special audio features such as vehicle noise compensation, spatial sound effects, individual sound zone, and active noise control. In this paper, commonly used objective measurement methods for basic sound quality and special features in cars are reviewed and discussed. All objective measurements are proposed to use the 6-unit microphone array specified in the White Paper for In-car Acoustic Measurements released by AES Technical Committee on Automotive Audio in 2023, and the main parameters to be measured are frequency responses and sound pressure levels in the car when the specially designed test signals are played back. General measurement frameworks and procedures for basic sound quality and each feature are presented. The advantages and weakness of using these parameters to characterize the basic sound quality and special features of a car audio system are discussed, and the challenges and future directions are explored.

Speakers

Xiaojun Qiu

Huawei

Dr. Xiaojun Qiu is currently a Chief Scientist in Audio and Acoustics at Huawei. Before he joined Huawei in late 2020, he had been a professor in several universities for nearly 20 years. He is a Fellow of Audio Engineering Society and a Fellow of International Institute of Acoustics... Read More →

Friday May 23, 2025 9:55am - 10:15am CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Automotive Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

10:40am CEST

Acoustic Objects: bridging immersive audio creation and distribution systems

Friday May 23, 2025 10:40am - 11:00am CEST

In recent years, professional and consumer audio and music technology has advanced in several areas, including sensory immersion, electronic transmission, content formats, and creation tools. The production and consumption of immersive media experiences increasingly rely on a global network of interconnected frameworks. These experiences, once confined to separate content markets like music, movies, video games, and virtual reality, are now becoming interoperable, ubiquitous, and adaptable to individual preferences, conditions, and languages. This article explores this evolution, focusing on flexible immersive audio creation and reproduction. We examine the development of object-based immersive audio technology and its role in unifying broadcast content with embodied experiences. We introduce the concept of Acoustic Objects, proposing a universal spatial audio scene representation model for creating and distributing versatile, navigable sound in music, multimedia, and virtual or extended reality applications.

Speakers

Jean-Marc Jot

Founder and Principal, Virtuel Works LLC

Spatial audio and music technology expert and innovator. Virtuel Works provides audio technology strategy, IP creation and licensing services to help accelerate the development of audio and music spatial computing technology and interoperability solutions.

Thibaut Carpentier

STMS Lab - IRCAM, SU, CNRS, Ministère de la Culture

Thibaut Carpentier studied acoustics at the École centrale and signal processing at Télécom ParisTech, before joining the CNRS as a research engineer. Since 2009, he has been a member of the Acoustic and Cognitive Spaces team in the STMS Lab (Sciences and Technologies of Music... Read More →

Olivier Warusfel

Friday May 23, 2025 10:40am - 11:00am CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

11:00am CEST

Immersive Music Production Workflows: An Ethnographic Study of Current Practices

Friday May 23, 2025 11:00am - 11:20am CEST

This study presents an ethnographic analysis of current immersive music production workflows, examining industry trends, tools, and methodologies. Through interviews and participant observations with professionals across various sectors, the research identifies common patterns, effective strategies, and persistent obstacles in immersive audio production. Key findings highlight the ongoing struggle for standardized workflows, the financial and technological barriers faced by independent artists, and the critical role of collaboration between engineers and creatives. Despite the growing adoption of immersive formats, workflows still follow stereo conventions, treating spatialization as an afterthought and complicating the translation of mixes across playback systems. Additionally, the study explores the evolving influence of object-based and bed-based mixing techniques, monitoring inconsistencies across playback systems, and the need for improved accessibility to immersive production education. By synthesizing qualitative insights, this paper contributes to the broader discourse on immersive music production, offering recommendations for future research and industry-wide best practices to ensure the sustainable integration of spatial audio technologies.

Speakers

Marcela Rada

Audio Engineer

Marcela is a talented and accomplished audio engineer that has experience both in the studio and in the classroom teaching university level students the skills of becoming professional audio engineers and music producers. She has worked across music genres recording, editing, mixing... Read More →

Russell Mason

Institute of Sound Recording, University of Surrey

Enzo De Sena

Senior Lecturer, University of Surrey

Enzo De Sena is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Sound Recording at the University of Surrey. He received the M.Sc. degree (cum laude) in Telecommunication engineering from the Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II,” Italy, in 2009 and the PhD degree in Electronic Engineering from King’s College London, UK, in 2013. Between 2013 and 2016 he was a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven... Read More →

Friday May 23, 2025 11:00am - 11:20am CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

11:20am CEST

Spherical harmonic beamforming based Ambisonics encoding and upscaling method for smartphone microphone array

Friday May 23, 2025 11:20am - 11:40am CEST

With the rapid development of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), spatial audio recording and reproduction have gained increasing research interest. Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) stands out for its adaptability to various playback devices and its ability to integrate head orientation. However, current HOA recordings often rely on bulky spherical microphone arrays (SMA), and portable devices like smartphones are limited by array configuration and number of microphones. We propose a method for HOA encoding using a smartphone microphone array (SPMA). By designing beamformers for each order of spherical harmonic functions based on the array manifold, the method enables HOA encoding and up-scaling. Validation on a real SPMA and its simulated free-field counterpart in noisy and reverberant conditions showed that the method successfully encodes and up-scales HOA up to the fourth order with just four irregularly arranged microphones.

Speakers

Yuhuan You

Yufan Qian

Tianshu Qu

Peking University

Bin Wang

Xueyang Lv

Friday May 23, 2025 11:20am - 11:40am CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

12:15pm CEST

The Future Of Spatial Audio For Consumers

Friday May 23, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm CEST

As spatial audio shifts from a premium feature to a mainstream expectation, significant challenges remain in delivering a uniform experience across devices, formats, and playback systems. This panel brings together industry and academic experts to explore the key technologies driving the future of immersive audio for consumers. We’ll discuss the core technological advancements, software, hardware, and ecosystem innovations necessary to enable more seamless and consistent spatial audio experiences. Additionally, we will examine the challenges of delivering perceptually accurate spatial audio across diverse playback environments and identify the most critical areas of focus for industry and academia to accelerate broader consumer adoption of spatial audio.

Speakers

Jacob Hollebon

Principal Research Engineer, Audioscenic

I am a researcher specialising in 3D spatial audio reproduction and beamforming using loudspeaker arrays. In my current role at Audioscenic I am helping commercialize innovate listener-adaptive loudspeaker arrays for 3D audio and multizone reproduction. Previously I developed a new... Read More →

Marcos Simón

CTO, Audioscenic

Jan Skoglund

Google

Jan Skoglund leads a team at Google in San Francisco, CA, developing speech and audio signal processing components for capture, real-time communication, storage, and rendering. These components have been deployed in Google software products such as Meet and hardware products such... Read More →

Hyunkook Lee

Professor, Applied Psychoacoustics Lab, University of Huddersfield

Professor

Friday May 23, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Audio for virtual/augmented reality environments Game Audio Multichannel and spatial audio Spatial audio applications

Presentation Type Workshop

1:30pm CEST

On the effect of photogrammetric reconstruction and pinna deformation methods on individual head-related transfer functions

Friday May 23, 2025 1:30pm - 1:50pm CEST

Individual head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) are instrumental in rendering plausible spatial audio playback over headphones as well as in understanding auditory perception. Nowadays, the numerical calculation of individual HRTFs is achievable even without high-performance computers. However, the main obstacle is the acquisition of a mesh of the pinnae with a submillimeter accuracy. One approach to this problem is the photogrammetric reconstruction (PR), which estimates a 3D shape from 2D input, e.g., photos. Albeit easy to use, this approach comes with a trade-off in the resulting mesh quality, which subsequently has a substantial impact on the HRTF's quality. In this study, we investigated the effect of PR on HRTF quality as compared to HRTFs calculated from a reference mesh acquired with a high-quality structured-light scanner. Additionally, we applied two pinna deformation methods, which registered a non-individual high-quality pinna to the individual low-quality PR pinna by means of geometric distances. We investigated the potential of these methods to improve the quality of the PR-based pinna meshes. Our evaluation involved the geometrical, acoustical, and psychoacoustical domains including a sound-localization experiment with 9 participants. Our results show that neither PR nor PR-improvement methods were able to provide individual HRTFs of sufficient quality, indicating that without extensive pre- or post-processing, PR provides too little individual detail in the HRTF-relevant pinna regions.

Speakers

Katharina Pollack

PhD student in spatial audio, Acoustics Research Institute Vienna & Imperial College London

Katharina Pollack studied electrical engineering audio engineering in Graz, both at the Technical University and the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz and is doing her PhD at the Acoustics Research Institute in Vienna in the field of spatial hearing. Her main research... Read More →

Piotr Majdak

Austrian Academy of Sciences

Lorenzo Picinali

Friday May 23, 2025 1:30pm - 1:50pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

1:50pm CEST

Mesh2PPM - Automatic Parametrization of the BezierPPM: Entire Pinna

Friday May 23, 2025 1:50pm - 2:10pm CEST

An individual human pinna geometry can be used to achieve plausible personalized audio reproduction. However, an accurate acquisition of the pinna geometry typically requires the use of specialized equipment and often involves time-consuming post-processing to remove potential artifacts. To obtain an artifact-free but individualized mesh, a parametric pinna model based on cubic Bézier curves (BezierPPM) can be used to represent an individual pinna. However, the parameters need to be manually tuned to the acquired listener’s geometry. For increased scalability, we propose Mesh2PPM, a framework for an automatic estimation of BezierPPM parameters from an individual pinna. Mesh2PPM relies on a deep neural network (DNN) that was trained on a dataset of synthetic multi-view images rendered from BezierPPM instances. For the evaluation, unseen BezierPPM instances were presented to Mesh2PPM which inferred the BezierPPM parameters. We subsequently assessed the geometric errors between the meshes obtained from the BezierPPM parametrized with the inferred parameters and the actual pinna meshes. We investigated the effects of the camera-grid type, jittered camera positions, and additional depth information in images on the estimation quality. While depth information had no effect, the camera-grid type and the jittered camera positions both had effects. A camera grid of 3×3 provided the best estimation quality, yielding Pompeiu-Hausdorff distances of 2.05 ± 0.4 mm and 1.4 ± 0.3 mm with and without jittered camera
positions, respectively, and root-mean-square (RMS) distances of 0.92 ± 0.12 mm and 0.52 ± 0.07 mm. These results motivate further improvements of the proposed framework to be ultimately applicable for an automatic estimation of pinna geometries obtained from actual listeners.

Speakers

Florian Pausch

Felix Perfler

Nicki Holighaus

Piotr Majdak

Austrian Academy of Sciences

Friday May 23, 2025 1:50pm - 2:10pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

2:10pm CEST

Towards a Headphone Target Curve for Spatial Audio

Friday May 23, 2025 2:10pm - 2:30pm CEST

In order to reproduce audio over headphones as in-
tended, it is essential to have well-defined and con-
sistent references of how headphones should sound.
With the aim of stereo reproduction in mind, the field
has established a de-facto reference target curve called
the Harman Target Curve to which headphone transfer
functions are commonly compared. This contribution
questions if the same target curve is suitable when used
for the reproduction of spatial audio. First, the ori-
gins the Harman Curve are revisited; it is motivated by
the frequency response of loudspeaker playback in a
specific listening room. The necessary measurement
procedures are described in detail. Then, the paper
discusses the applicability of existing targets to spa-
tial audio. Therein, it is possible to embed convincing
spatial room information directly into the production,
thereby calling into question the motivation for incor-
porating a listening room in the headphone target. The
paper concludes with a listening experiment that com-
pares the preference of different target curves for both
spatial audio and stereo

Speakers

Alexander Mülleder

Graz University of Technology

Nils Meyer-Kahlen

Aalto University

Konstantin Davy

Matthias Frank

Friday May 23, 2025 2:10pm - 2:30pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

2:30pm CEST

Sound Source Directivity Estimation in Spherical Fourier Domain from Sparse Measurements

Friday May 23, 2025 2:30pm - 2:50pm CEST

In recent years, applications such as virtual reality (VR) systems and room acoustics simulations have brought the modeling of sound source directivity into focus. An accurate simulation of directional responses of sound sources is essential in immersive audio applications.

Real sound sources have directional properties that are different from simple sources such as monopoles, which are sources frequently used for modeling more complex acoustic fields. For instance, the sound level of human speech as a sound source varies considerably depending on where the sound is recorded with respect to the talker’s head. The same is true for loudspeakers, which are considered linear and time-independent sources. When the sound is recorded behind the speaker, it is normal to observe differences of up to 20 dB SPL at some frequencies. The directional characteristics of sound sources become particularly pronounced at high frequencies. The propagation of real sound sources, such as human voices or musical instruments, differs from simple source models like monopoles, dipoles, and quadrupoles due to their physical structures.

The common approach to measuring directivity patterns of sound sources involves surrounding a sound source in an anechoic chamber with a high number of pressure microphones on a spherical grid and registering the sound power at these positions. Apart from the prohibitive hardware requirements, such measurement setups are mostly impractical and costly. Audio system manufacturers have developed various methods for measuring sound source directionality over the years. These methods are generally of high technical complexity.

This article proposes a new, reduced-complexity directivity measurement approach based on the spherical harmonic decomposition of the sound field. The method estimates the directional characteristics of sound sources using fewer measurement points with spherical microphone arrays. The spherical harmonic transform allows for the calculation of directivity using data collected from spherical microphone arrays instead of pressure sensors. The proposed method uses both the pressure component and spatial derivatives of the sound field and successfully determines directivity with sparse measurements.

An estimation model based on the spherical Fourier transform was developed, measurements were carried out to test this model, and preliminary results obtained from the estimation model are presented. Experiments conducted at the METU Spatial Audio Research Laboratory demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method. The directivity characteristics of Genelec 6010A loudspeaker are measured using eight 3rd-order spherical microphone arrays. The directivity functions obtained were highly consistent with the data provided by the loudspeaker manufacturer. The results, especially in low and mid-frequency bands, indicate the utility of the proposed method.

Speakers

Orhun Olgun

Huseyin Hacihabiboglu

Friday May 23, 2025 2:30pm - 2:50pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

2:50pm CEST

Perceptual evaluation of professional point and line sources for immersive audio applications

Friday May 23, 2025 2:50pm - 3:10pm CEST

Immersive sound reinforcement aims to create a balanced perception of sounds arriving from different directions, establishing an impression of envelopment over the audience area. Current perceptual research shows that coverage designs featuring nearly constant decay (0dB per distance doubling) preserve the level balance among audio objects in the mix. In contrast, a -3dB decay supports a more uniform sensation of envelopment, especially for off-center listening positions. For practical reasons, point-source loudspeakers remain widely used for immersive audio playback in mid-sized venues. However, point-source loudspeakers inherently decay by -6dB per distance doubling, and using them can conflict with the design goals outlined above. In this paper, we investigate the perceived differences between point-source and line-source setups using eight surrounding loudspeakers side-by-side covering a 10m x 7m audience area. The perceptual qualities of object level balance, spatial definition, and envelopment were compared in a MUSHRA listening experiment, and acoustic measurements were carried out to capture room impulse responses and binaural room impulse responses (BRIRs) of the experimental setup. The BRIRs were used to check whether the results of the listening experiment were reproducible on headphones. Both the loudspeaker and headphone-based experiments delivered highly correlated results. Also, regression models devised based on the acoustic measurements are highly correlated to the perceptual results. The results confirm that elevated line sources, exhibiting a practically realizable decay of -2dB per distance doubling, help preserve object-level balance, increase spatial definition, and provide a uniform envelopment experience throughout the audience area compared to point-source loudspeakers.

Speakers

Leon Merkel

Franz Zotter

University of Music and Performing Arts Graz

Franz Zotter received an M.Sc. degree in electrical and audio engineering from the University of Technology (TUG) in 2004, a Ph.D. degree in 2009 and a venia docendi in 2023 from the University of Music and Performing Arts (KUG) in Graz, Austria. He joined the Institute of Electronic... Read More →

Philip Coleman

Senior Immersive Audio Research Engineer, L-Acoustics

I'm a research engineer in the L-ISA immersive audio team at L-Acoustics, based in Highgate, London. I'm working on the next generation of active acoustics and object-based spatial audio reproduction, to deliver the best possible shared experiences.Before joining L-Acoustics in September... Read More →

Friday May 23, 2025 2:50pm - 3:10pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Spatial Audio

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

3:45pm CEST

A Curvilinear Transfer Function for Wide Dynamic Range Compression With Expansion

Friday May 23, 2025 3:45pm - 4:05pm CEST

Wide Dynamic Range Compression in hearing aids is becoming increasingly more complex as the number of channels and adjustable parameters grow. At the same time, there is growing demand for customization and user self-adjustment of hearing aids, necessitating a balance between complexity and user accessibility. Compression in hearing aids is governed by the input-output transfer function, which relates input magnitude to output magnitude, and is typically defined as a combination of linear piecewise segments resembling logarithmic behavior. This work presents an alternative to the conventional compression transfer function that consolidates multiple compression parameters and revisits expansion in hearing aids. The
curvilinear transfer function is a continuous curve with logarithm-like behavior, governed by two parameters—gain and compression ratio. Experimental results show that curvilinear compression reduces the amplification of low-level noise, improves signal-to-noise ratio by up to 1.0 dB, improves sound quality as measured by the Hearing Aids Speech Quality Index by up to 6.7%, and provides comparable intelligibility as measured by the Hearing Aids Speech Perception Index, with simplified parameterization compared to conventional compression.
The consolidated curvilinear transfer function is highly applicable to over-the-counter hearing aids and offers more capabilities for customization than current prominent over-the-counter and self-adjusted hearing aids.

Speakers

Alice Sokolova

Baris Aksanli

Fredric Harris

Harinath Garudadri

Friday May 23, 2025 3:45pm - 4:05pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Hearing Loss Protection and Enhancement

Presentation Type Paper Presentation

4:05pm CEST

Tiresias - An Open-Source Hearing Aid Development Board

Friday May 23, 2025 4:05pm - 4:25pm CEST

Hearing loss is a global public health issue due to its high prevalence and negative impact on various aspects of one’s life, including well being and cognition. Despite their crucial role in auditory rehabilitation, hearing aids remain inaccessible to many due to their high costs, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Existing open-source solutions often rely on high-power, bulky platforms rather than compact, low-power wearables suited for real-world applications. This work introduces Tiresias, an open-source hearing aid development board designed for real-time audio processing using low-cost electronics. Integrating key hearing aid functionalities into a compact six-layer printed circuit board (PCB), Tiresias features multichannel compression, digital filtering, beamforming, Bluetooth connectivity, and physiological data monitoring, fostering modularity and accessibility through publicly available hardware and firmware resources based on the Nordic nRF Connect and Zephyr real-time operating system (RTOS). By addressing technological and accessibility challenges, this work advances open-source hearing aid development, enabling research in hearing technologies, while also supporting future refinements and real-world validation.

Friday May 23, 2025 4:05pm - 4:25pm CEST
C2 ATM Studio Warsaw, Poland

Hearing Loss Protection and Enhancement

Presentation Type Paper Presentation