Audio Rendering Suitable for Reverberant Rooms

Simple SummaryContent extracted from patent full text and abstract with AI.

This invention describes an audio processor for improved sound rendering in rooms with reverberation (echoes and reflected sound). The processor calculates how to adjust the sound for each loudspeaker based on the listener's position and the room's reverberation properties, using a function that ensures gain compensation becomes less aggressive as the listener moves farther from each speaker. This creates a more consistent and stable audio experience throughout the listening area, rather than only at an optimal 'sweet spot.'

Use CasesContent extracted from patent full text and abstract with AI.

• Home theater systems capable of adapting sound delivery as listeners move around the room.
• Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) systems needing stable and immersive audio as users move in 3D space.
• Professional audio installations (e.g., cinemas, concert halls, museums) where audience members occupy many different positions.
• Multi-user gaming environments with dynamic user positions and need for consistent audio immersion.
• Smart speakers and adaptive soundbars that adjust audio settings for variable user locations.

BenefitsContent extracted from patent full text and abstract with AI.

• Provides a more uniform and stable audio experience across the entire room, not limited to a fixed sweet spot.
• Compensates for the effects of room reverberation, delivering clearer and more accurate sound regardless of position.
• Supports real-time adaptation to listener movements, enhancing immersion in interactive environments like VR and AR.
• Reduces perception of audio artifacts such as collapse of stereo imaging when moving away from optimal positions.
• Allows audio systems to be more forgiving to non-ideal room layouts or listener arrangements, increasing user satisfaction.

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Patent Abstract

Audio processor for performing audio rendering by generating rendering parameters, which determine a derivation of loudspeaker signals to be reproduced by a set of loudspeakers from an audio signal. The audio processor is configured to obtain a reverberation effect information and to perform a gain adjustment so as to determine, based on a listener position, gains for generating the loudspeaker signals for the loudspeakers from the audio signal. The audio processor is configured to use, depending on the reverberation effect information, in the gain adjustment, for at least one loudspeaker, a roll-off gain compensation function for mapping a listener-to-loudspeaker distance of the at least one loudspeaker onto a listener-to-loudspeaker-distance compensation gain for the at least one loudspeaker, for which a compensated roll-off gets monotonically shallower with increasing listener-to-loudspeaker distance.