RAVes: Room Acoustic Variances – A Spatial and Binaural Room Impulse Response Dataset for 5.0 Loudspeaker Configurations

The dataset includes measurements of spatial room impulse responses (SRIR) and binaural room impulse responses (BRIR) of a five-channel loudspeaker configuration in various rooms and at different locations within them.

Loudspeaker Setup: According to ITU-R BS.2159, a 5.0 loudspeaker setup without an LFE channel was selected for the measurements. The properties of the loudspeaker setup are shown in Table 1. The radius of the arrangement is 2 m. The loudspeakers used were RL 906 from ME Geithain. These are active 2-way coaxial loudspeakers for listening distances between 1 m and 2.60 m. The loudspeakers were calibrated before usage to 76 dB(SPL), for 1 kHz at a distance of 1 m. The acoustic center of the speakers was at a height of 1.24 m.

Table 1.: Loudspeaker Setup

Channel No.:

Speaker

Acronym

Angle

1

Left

L

30 °

2

Right

R

330 °

3

Center

C

0 °

4

Low frequency effects

LFE

-

5

Left surround

LS

110 °

6

Right surround

RS

250 °

Rooms: The measurements were conducted in a total of seven different rooms. An overview of some properties of the individual rooms is shown in Table 2. The rooms were selected to be different in size, shape, and reverberation properties. Five of the seven rooms are small to medium-sized and cover a relatively wide range of reverberation times, from 0.21 s to 1.20 s. With the lecture hall and the foyer of the Helmholtz Building, the measurement data were supplemented by two very large rooms with different acoustic properties. Reverberation times were captured using an NTI XL2 audio analyzer. With the exception of the living room (LR001), all rooms are owned by Technische Universität Ilmenau.

Table 2.: Overview of the properties of the rooms in which the measurements were performed. The room height was measured at position M. For a better impression of the rooms, see the floor plans (“Floor_plans.zip”) and the 360° Images ("Pictures360.zip").

Room
Size
L x W x H
RT
Description

HLListening Lab

mid-sized room, 82m²

7.54 m x 8.43 m x 2.78 m

0.21 s
symmetric, built according to ITU-R BS.1116-3, low-reverberation acoustics

H1539bTest Lab
small room, 27m²
5.71 m x 4,81 m x 2.85 m
0.28 s
slightly asymmetric, lowreverberation acoustics

LR001Living Room
mid-sized room, 40m²
-
0.46 s
not a shoe-box design

ML2-102Conference Room
small room, 32m²
5.25 m x 6.06 m x 2.65 m
0.52 s
symmetric, moderately reverberant acoustics

HU103Lecture Hall, Audimax
large room, approx. 623m²
-
0.65 s
not a shoebox design, acoustics optimized for music and speech reproduction, moderately reverberant acoustics

H2505Seminar Room
mid-sized room, 48m²
9.95 m x 4.71 m x 3.15 m
1.20 s
symmetric, high reverberant acoustics

H1562Foyer Helmholtz-Building
large room, approx. 196m²
12.17 m x 14.73 m x 3.34 m  
3.47 s
not a shoebox design, staircase over three floors, highly reverberant acoustics; The room height across all floors is 10.46 m 

Loudspeaker setup positions within rooms: In every room, with the exception of LR001, measurements were taken at three different positions: Middle (M), wall (W) and edge (E). The setup was placed as follows:

Middle (M): in the middle of the room, if possible parallel to a wall.

Wall (W): center loudspeaker on the wall, and parallel to this, so that left and right speakers have the same distance to the wall.

Edge (E): like the position wall and additionally left surround on another wall, so that the corner is always on the left side of the setup.

The reference point (zero point) always refers to the center of the loudspeaker setup, where the microphone array or dummy head is located. The relative positions of the setup in the room can be found in the floor plans (“Floor_plans.zip”), if available.

BRIR measurements: The BRIR measurements were done using a dummy head (DH) on a turntable. For this a G.R.A.S. KEMAR dummy head with torso (see file “DH_HL_M.JPG”) was used, including pinna models KEMAR small right KB0060 and small left KB0061, 1/2" microphone capsules typ 40AO, microphone preamplifier typ 26CS and IEPE Conditioning Modules M32. The turntable is an ET250-3D from Outline. This configuration was used to measure BRIRs horizontal over 360° with a 5° resolution.

SRIR measurements: The SRIR measurements were done using a self-built microphone array that can be used for the Spatial Decomposition Method (SDM) (see file: “SDM_HL_M.JPG”). It consists of one measurement microphone of the type M30 from Earthworks Audio and six EM258 electret condenser microphones. These are arranged in pairs along vertical axes at a distance of 5 cm from the measuring microphone capsule. The configuration of the capsule and the channel assignment, see the Table 3.

Table 3.: Microphone capsule positions relative to the center point of the array (in [m])

Channel No.
x
y
z
Microphone type

1
0.05
0.00
0.00
EM258

2
0.00
-0.035
-0.035
EM258

3
0.00
-0.035
0.035
EM258

4
-0.05
0.00
0.00
EM258

5
0.00
0.035
0.035
EM258

6
0.00
0.035
-0.035
EM258

7
0.00
0.00
0.00
Earthworks Audio M30

The ZIP files contain all measurements taken within a room, either for the BRIRs or for the SRIRs.

File format: 

The SRIR and BRIR data are sorted according to the room and loudspeaker setup position. 

The actual data is provided in SOFA file format. The name of the sofa files consists of the RIR type, the room short name and coded loudspeaker setup position within the room and contains all measurements for these conditions.

The "SOFA Toolbox v2.1" was used to generate the sofa files.

The SRIR data is available in the SOFAConvention “SingleRoomSRIR” in Version 1.1.The BRIR data is available in the SOFAConvention “SingleRoomMIMOSRIR” in Version 1.0.

See: https://www.sofaconventions.org/

Note regarding differences in loudspeaker position specifications in the Sofa files: For SRIR data (SingleRoomSRIR), the loudspeaker positions are stored in the SourcePosition field. For BRIR data (SingleRoomMIMOSRIR), due to the data format, this information is stored in the EmitterPosition field. The SourcePosition is referenced there relative to the origin ([0,0,0]), for all dummy head orientations.