Chapter 10
Wave Field Synthesis
Motivation and History
Perhaps the earliest example of an immersive sound system is the acoustic curtain developed by Steinberg and Snow at AT&T Bell Laboratories and published in 1934 (Steinberg & Snow, 1934). Several microphones placed in a row in the recording room were wired 1:1 to loudspeakers in the reproduction room. This is depicted in Figure 10.1.
A few years later, researchers at Bell Labs suggested reducing the number of loudspeakers of the acoustic curtain down to three channels. Later, in 1953/1955 Snow reported that “the number of channels will depend upon the size of the stage and listening rooms, and the precision in localization ...
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