Loudspeaker arrays for family TV
Marcos Simón Gálvez, Stephen J. Elliott, Jordan Cheer · 2012
As the hearing capabilities of humans are degraded with age, it becomes more difficult for people of different ages to enjoy television together, as they need different audio volumes. A 60 years old person needs a 10 dB boost at high frequencies, on average, in order to be able to listen properly. This paper describes an approach to obtain this boost. A line array using 8 phase-shift sources has been designed and constructed. This array produces a boost of 10 dB in a narrow spatial zone, where the person with the hearing loss is placed. The response in other directions is minimized to reduce the excitation of the reverberant field in the room, with the phase-shift sources controlling the radiation to the rear of the array. Free field simulations were used to design the array and also investigate various algorithms for the broad band reproduction of the audio signal. The real-time performance of the experimental array was then tested in free field and realistic environmental conditions.