Evaluation of Sensor Self-Noise In Binaural Rendering of Spherical Microphone Array Signals

Spherical microphone arrays are used to capture spatial sound fields, which can then be rendered via headphones. We use the Real-Time Spherical Array Renderer (ReTiSAR) to analyze and auralize the propagation of sensor self-noise through the processing pipeline. An instrumental evaluation confirms a strong global influence of different array and rendering parameters on the spectral balance and the overall level of the rendered noise. The character of the noise is direction independent in the case of spatially uniformly distributed noise. However, timbre of the rendered self-noise changes with head orientation in the case of spatially non-uniform noise. We determine audibility thresholds of the coloration artifact during head rotations for different array configurations in a perceptual user study.