Small Array Reproduction Method for Ambisonic Encodings Using Headtracking

Compensated Amplitude Panning (CAP) is a spatial audio reproduction method for loudspeakers that takes the listener head orientation into account. It can produce stable images in any direction with as few as two loudspeakers. In its original form CAP is inherently an object-based method, where each image is produced separately. A direct method is presented here for dynamically decoding a first order Ambisonic encoding that is equivalent to using CAP to separately reproduce the constituents of the encoding. Both the stereo and multichannel cases are considered. Ambisonic decoding enables complex scenes to be reproduced with little cost. Ambisonic encodings are now used widely for 360° video, and other applications.