External Master Thesis
Title: Binaural Reproduction of Higher Order Ambisonics – A Real-Time Implementation and Perceptual Improvements
Author: Jakob Vennerod
University and Date: Norwegian University of Science and Technology Trondheim, 06.2014
Field: Electronics System Design and Innovation
Overall Design
Being a scientific research thesis, the design and aesthetics don’t play a big role. However, the font selection and clarity of the graphics and structure is very well thought out. The formulae are well positioned and the complex graphics are ver clear.
Innovation
At the time where Virtual Reality was on the verge of it’s consumer birth, ambisonics was still a very research-only term. In 2014 this kind of research is what allowed the shipment of great quality binaural audio for VR in 2017
Structure
The thesis expands across 6 chapters. It begins explaining the theory of Higher oder Ambisonics and how it should behave according to physics, acoustics, mathematics and state of the art hardware. Then, the author goes into detail of his own research to confirm and enhance the latency and harmonic and tonal response of ambisonics recording. He documents his steps and finally show results and a conclusion
Communication
For a scientific work, the thesis is very well explained, and documented. Every abreviatura has an explanation and the formulae are well described.
It’s a technical piece that needs previous understanding in the field, but for a beginner like me, totally understandable
Scope
The work extends over 114 pages, including Annexes and graphics. It’s a hefty thesis but it is also a deep concept that it dives in. It could spare some parts about the state of the art technology and mathematic theory for the decoding, but overall does a very great job going into detail.
Orthography
There are of course no problems with either orthography or formatting across the thesis
Bibliography
The bibliography is rich, over 4 pages worth of, and every source is correctly cited according to standard
