Welcome to Applied Psychoacoustics Laboratory (APL)

We are a multidisciplinary team of psychoacoustics researchers, digital audio signal processing engineers, sound engineers and music producers, based at the University of Huddersfield, UK.

APL VIRTUOSO v2

The most realistic and natural-sounding binaural renderer.
Transform your headphones into a world-class studio!

About Us

We are a multidisciplinary team of psychoacoustics researchers, digital audio signal processing engineers, sound engineers and music producers, based in the School of Computing and Engineering of the University of Huddersfield, UK. Since the establishment of the lab in 2013 by Professor Hyunkook Lee, a world-leading expert in spatial audio and psychoacoustic engineering, we have been advancing the understanding of how humans perceive various types of auditory attributes and developing new audio signal processing algorithms and spatial recording techniques. The academic and industrial impacts of our research were considered 4-stars (world-leading) in the Research Excellence Framework 2021, the UK’s system for assessing the excellence of research in UK Universities.

Our Mission

To advance the knowledge about the mechanism of human auditory experience and provide perceptually-motivated solutions to audio engineering problems.

Our Vision

To help enhance people’s quality of life by delivering high-quality audio experiences in their daily lives.

Research

We conduct world-leading research in various areas of psychoacoustic engineering, including 3D audio perception, recording and reproduction, binaural audio rendering with virtual acoustic simulation, perceptual modelling of spatial and timbral auditory attributes and spatial audio sonification. Find out about our projects, publications and presentations.

Solutions

ASPEN™ (APL Spatial Audio Engine) is our software solution for immersive 3D audio content creation and reproduction. It provides the user with the most realistic and natural sense of auditory presence in binaural and multichannel listening environments. Its advanced virtual acoustic simulation technology enables high-quality immersive audio experience for music, film, games, extended reality (XR)/metaverse, automotive audio and many other applications.

Products

We are passionate about bringing our research into the real world as software products. Our mission is to provide content creators with useful tools to produce high-quality immersive content and also to provide people with truly immersive auditory experiences in their daily lives. Check out our first commercial audio plugin/app VIRTUOSO, the most natural and realistic-sounding binaural translation tool for stereo and immersive audio.

Resources

We are dedicated to sharing useful resources generated from our research with other researchers, students and educators to advance the field of audio science and engineering together. Discover our Open-Access databases, source code, and research and educational tools.

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