Measuring Motion-to-Sound Latency in Virtual Acoustic Rendering Systems

Few studies that employ virtual acoustic rendering systems accurately specify motion-to-sound latency. To make such assessments more common, we present two methods for latency measurements using either impulsive or periodic movements. The methods only require hardware available in every acoustics lab: a small microphone and a loudspeaker. We provide open-source tools that implement analysis according to the methods. The methods are evaluated on a high-quality optical tracking system. In addition, three small trackers based on inertial measurement units were tested. The results show the reliability of the method for the optical system and the difficulties in defining the latency of inertial measurement unit-based trackers.