The directional effect of crosstalk in multi-channel sound reproduction

The effect of increasing inter-channel crosstalk in multichannel reproduction is investigated with auditory model simulations. A standard auditory model is used to estimate the perceptions of listeners in multichannel listening with crosstalk. ITD and ILD cue values are computed for three different loudspeaker setups. The crosstalk is varied between -14 dB and -38 dB. The results show that when inter-channel crosstalk is increased, ITD cues suggest directions biased towards the median plane. The bias is larger when the number of loudspeakers is larger. There is a similar phenomenon with ILD cues, however, the behavior is less systematic. This suggests that the crosstalk makes the spatial image narrower in the left/right dimension. Also, when crosstalk is increased, there is some non-natural frequency dependency in both cues, which may make the perceived virtual source directionally spreaded.