Application of an Ambisonic Microphone for the Measurements of Room Acoustic Parameters

The most commonly used measurement technique in room acoustics employs a single omnidirectional microphone for recording the room impulse response and further derivation of such acoustical parameters as T30, EDT, C50 or C80. Instead, ambisonic technology makes it possible to measure a spatial room impulse response. Ambisonics decomposes the signal from the spherical microphone array into spherical harmonics to shape the directivity. Ambisonics lets to go beyond basic acoustical parameters and allows to determine spatial features of a sound field at the measurement point. This study presents the comparison of fundamental acoustic parameters measured in the recording studio by an actual omnidirectional microphone and virtual omnidirectional microphones derieved from ambisonic microphones of the first and third order. The results show the usefulness of ambisonic technology in terms of assessing basic room parameters.