3. Comparing different devices and integrating them into virtual reality

Table 1 summarizes the different aspects of reproduction devices in terms of the size of the sweet spot, the quality of spatialization and the number of channels required. As can be seen, binaural spatialization devices offer excellent restitution quality, but are mainly limited to a single-user context. However, they can be extended to multi-user contexts by equipping each listener with (wireless) headphones. Combined with motion tracking systems, this kind of device has been successfully used in many virtual reality and augmented sound reality applications. They also enable easy integration of spatialized sound in CAVE (cave automated virtual environment) environments, where speaker integration is more difficult. Multi-loudspeaker rendering systems overcome certain limitations of binaural rendering, in particular individual...