Ambisonic recordings of sound fields from commonly occupied built environments

There is growing use of simulated soundscapes to study human perception, such as for testing hearing aids or cochlear implants. Ambisonics is one method to record and then simulate three-dimensional sound fields with more accurate directional information. In this project, our aim has been to expand the currently available database of ambisonic recordings of soundscapes in built environments. To this end, we have made recordings of sound fields in frequently occupied spaces in the built environment such as classrooms and food courts, using a commercially available ambisonic microphone capturing up to first-order spherical harmonics. While databases of such recordings are available online, many recorded samples are short in duration, typically less than 5 min. long. Furthermore, there are fewer samples taken from occupied spaces in the built environment which are of interest in architectural acoustics. We will review recordings that are already available online and describe our acquired recordings which sample additional spaces and are longer in length. We will share a link to where these can be accessed and downloaded. An ultimate goal is for researchers to utilize these recordings to generate more ecologically valid sound fields when testing human responses in more controllable, simulated test environments.