Uniform spreading of amplitude panned virtual sources

The perceived spatial spread of amplitude panned virtual sources is dependent on the number of loudspeakers that are used to produce them. When pair-wise or triplet-wise panning is applied, the number of active loudspeakers varies as a function of the panning direction. This may cause unwanted changes in spatial spread and coloration of a virtual source if it is moved in the sound stage. In this paper a method is presented to make the directional spread of amplitude panned virtual sources independent of their panning direction. This is accomplished by panning the sound signal to multiple directions near each other simultaneously. This forms a single virtual source with constant directional spread as a function of direction