Dependence on Early and Late Reverberation of Single-Channel Speaker Distance Estimation

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Neri, Michael, Politis, Archontis, Virtanen, Tuomas
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Neri, Michael
Politis, Archontis
Virtanen, Tuomas
author_facet Neri, Michael
Politis, Archontis
Virtanen, Tuomas
contents Single-channel speaker distance estimation has recently achieved centimeter-level accuracy in simulated environments, yet it remains unclear which components of the room impulse response (RIR) the model exploits and how performance depends on the recording conditions. In this work, we decompose simulated RIRs into four variants (full, direct-only, no-late, and no-early) using the mixing time estimated from the echo density function as the boundary between early reflections and late reverberation. We define four calibration scenarios, from fully calibrated (synchronised capture, known source level) to fully uncalibrated (arbitrary onset, unknown level), and evaluate all combinations on a matched dataset. Results show that without time calibration, mean absolute error (MAE) increases to $1.29$ m and the model extracts reverberation-based cues, with early reflections emerging as the most informative component. Further analysis against DRR, $C_{50}$, and $T_{60}$ confirms that estimation accuracy improves with stronger early energy and degrades in highly reverberant environments. When time calibration is available, the model achieves a MAE of $0.14$ m by extracting the propagation delay alone, regardless of the RIR content.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_07694
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dependence on Early and Late Reverberation of Single-Channel Speaker Distance Estimation
Neri, Michael
Politis, Archontis
Virtanen, Tuomas
Audio and Speech Processing
Artificial Intelligence
Sound
Signal Processing
Single-channel speaker distance estimation has recently achieved centimeter-level accuracy in simulated environments, yet it remains unclear which components of the room impulse response (RIR) the model exploits and how performance depends on the recording conditions. In this work, we decompose simulated RIRs into four variants (full, direct-only, no-late, and no-early) using the mixing time estimated from the echo density function as the boundary between early reflections and late reverberation. We define four calibration scenarios, from fully calibrated (synchronised capture, known source level) to fully uncalibrated (arbitrary onset, unknown level), and evaluate all combinations on a matched dataset. Results show that without time calibration, mean absolute error (MAE) increases to $1.29$ m and the model extracts reverberation-based cues, with early reflections emerging as the most informative component. Further analysis against DRR, $C_{50}$, and $T_{60}$ confirms that estimation accuracy improves with stronger early energy and degrades in highly reverberant environments. When time calibration is available, the model achieves a MAE of $0.14$ m by extracting the propagation delay alone, regardless of the RIR content.
title Dependence on Early and Late Reverberation of Single-Channel Speaker Distance Estimation
topic Audio and Speech Processing
Artificial Intelligence
Sound
Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.07694