A VR demo showcasing the impact of various low level immersive features such as (HRTF individualization, reverberation, source directivity) on the quality of the experience in a remote music lesson
This work reports an exploratory perceptual assessment of a binaurally rendered virtual choir, focusing on how spatial, audiovisual, and performative (including conductor-related) dimensions shape perceived plausibility of the depicted musical event. A four-part a cappella passage from Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" was recorded at six positions, five within the choir and one at the conductor, using first-order Ambisonic recorders in a controlled acoustic environment. These recording positions were later matched to six teleportation points in a virtual performance space. The experience was reproduced over open-back headphones via a dual-engine system coupling Unity (visuals, interaction) with REAPER (audio rendering) via OSC; head-tracked scene rotation and algorithmically added late reverberation were applied in real time, with binaural decoding using an individualized KEMAR HRTF set. 24 participants with choral backgrounds wore a Meta Quest 3 headset and navigated among the teleportation points. Seven items were rated inside the virtual environment on 5-point scales: source--position connection, conductor--music temporal coherence, voice-part localizability, reverberation--room congruence, co-presence, conductor naturalness, and event plausibility. Results suggested an uneven perceptual profile where audio-spatial aspects of the scene were experienced as comparatively coherent and the depicted musical event as plausible, whereas the animated conductor was the clearest limitation. The match between reverberation and visible room size was rated as moderate, and co-presence with the choir and conductor varied widely across participants.
Indoor navigation remains a significant cIRCAM:Galleryenge for blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals, particularly in complex environments where conventional assistive solutions rely on visual interfaces or dedicated infrastructure. Spatial audio offers a non-visual alternative by encoding navigational information as virtual sound sources that can be perceived and followed in three-dimensional space. This work presents a demonstration of an indoor navigation system developed within the SONICOM project, using spatial audio rendering on standard smartphones with open-ear headphones. The system provides continuous directional guidance through virtual auditory targets, updated in real time based on user motion and orientation, without requiring additional physical infrastructure. A core research objective of SONICOM has been to improve the perceptual realism of spatial audio and to investigate its impact on navigation performance. In this context, controlled experiments were conducted to evaluate how different rendering parameters—such as head-related transfer function individualization and rendering fidelity—affect user performance, confidence, and cognitive load during navigation tasks. The results of these experiments are presented in the accompanying poster. The demonstration allows participants to experience multiple audio rendering conditions, including high-fidelity spatial audio, simplified spatial cues, and non-spatialized audio. By directly comparing these conditions, participants can perceive how spatial audio realism influences orientation and movement. This work highlights the potential of spatial audio as an infrastructure-independent approach to accessible indoor navigation and provides an experiential complement to experimental findings on the role of auditory spatialization in assistive technologies.
The Vaulted Harmonies project explores the co-evolution of architecture, acoustics, and music in the cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris through immersive audiovisual experiences. Following the production of a one-hour animated feature film combining historically informed visual reconstructions and dynamic spatial audio renderings, three additional dissemination formats were developed: a dome version for planetarium diffusion, a standalone virtual reality experience, and a web-based interactive experience. While derived from the same core assets and archaeoacoustic reconstruction workflow, each platform required specific perceptual, technical, and distribution-oriented adaptations. This paper presents the shared adaptation workflow, platform-specific constraints and rendering strategies, and discusses scalable dissemination approaches for immersive heritage experiences.
