Predicting the Colouration between Binaural Signals

Abstract

Although the difference between the fast Fourier transforms of two audio signals is often used as a basic measure of predicting perceived colouration, these signal measures do not provide information on how relevant the results are from a perceptual point of view. This paper presents a perceptually motivated loudness calculation for predicting the colouration between binaural signals which incorporates equal loudness frequency contouring, relative subjective loudness weighting, cochlea frequency modelling, and an iterative normalisation of input signals. The validation compares the presented model to three other colouration calculations in two ways: using test signals designed to evaluate specific elements of the model, and against the results of a listening test on degraded binaural audio signals. Results demonstrate the presented model is appropriate for predicting the colouration between binaural signals.