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Abstract:
The perceptual evaluation of virtual acoustic environments may be based on overall criteria such as plausibility and authenticity or by using catalogues of more detailed auditory qualities as, e.g., loudness, timbre, localization, etc. However, only the latter will be suitable to reveal specific shortcomings of a simulation under test and allow for a directed technical improvement. To this end a common vocabulary of relevant perceptual attributes appears desirable. Existing vocabularies for the evaluation of sound field synthesis, spatialization technologies and virtual environments were often generated ad hoc by the authors or have focused only on specific perceptual aspects. To overcome these limitations, we have developed a Spatial Audio Quality Inventory (SAQI) for the evaluation of virtual acoustic environments. It is a consensus vocabulary comprising 48 verbal descriptors of perceptual qualities assumed to be of practical relevance when comparing virtual environments to real or imagined references or amongst each other. The vocabulary was generated by a Focus Group of 21 German speaking experts for virtual acoustics. Five additional experts helped verifying the unambiguity of all descriptors and the related explanations. Moreover, an English translation was generated and verified by eight bilingual experts.
