AES Europe 2026

This study investigates the relationship between the
robustness of crosstalk cancellation; the symmetry of
system configuration. Analytical results show that, when
the positions of the sound sources are fixed, increasing
asymmetry caused by deviations in the listener’s head
position or orientation leads to a reduction in system
robustness, whereas optimal performance is consistently
achieved in symmetric layouts. For asymmetric
configurations, we propose a method to optimize the axial
angles of the sound sources. This method leverages source
directivity patterns to adjust level differences along the
acoustic propagation paths, thereby improving system
robustness. Experiments confirm the effectiveness of the
proposed method in asymmetric crosstalk cancellation
systems, demonstrating enhanced robustness; yielding
higher binaural channel separation under slight listener
head movements.