Can a Dry Recording Treated with a Convolution Reverb in a Surround Sound Speaker System be Perceived as Maintaining the Same Degree of Naturalness as Real Recorded Reverberation?

Abstract: When recording classical instruments, access to a physical space of acoustic properties associated with classical music might not always be available. This study seeks to investigate if classical music recorded in an environment with a short reverberation time can be treated with an impulse response from a concert hall and still maintain the same sense of naturalness. The study is broken down into three phases of analysis. Phase one seeks to analyze to what extent people can tell the difference between the two reverberation types: real recorded reverberation and convolution reverb. Phase two analyses if people perceive the amount of naturalness to be different between the two reverberation types. Phase three analyses the potential influence that certain spatial or timbral attributes might have on perceived amount of naturalness. Samples for the listening test were recorded in a studio, and in a classical concert hall where the impulse responses also were created. A two-part listening test (pre-study and main study) was conducted utilizing a 5.1 surround sound speaker system. The results showed that the convolution reverb could replace the real recorded reverbation to a small- to fair degree, and still maintain the same sense of naturalness.