On Perceptual Audio Equalization for Multiple Users in Presence of Ambient Noise
Juan Estreder, Gema Piñero, Fabian Aguirre, María de Diego, Alberto J. Gonzalez · 2018
There are many situations where ambient noise can disturb the listening of music through loudspeakers, the most usual inside cars, trains or airplanes. A common solution is to listen to the music through headphones, but in some cases, as for the car driver, it is not allowed. Even for the rest of the passengers of a car, it would be more comfortable to listen to the music without the need of headphones. In this paper, we have implemented a single-user perceptual equalizer that presents a good behaviour similar to previous solutions, but it is based on a linear additive auditory masking model. Moreover, we propose a new strategy to obtain the gains of the perceptual equalizer that does not depend on external parameters. Our alternative approach (linear additive masking model and robust equalizer design) makes possible to extend the perceptual equalizer to the multi-user case, i.e., when more than one user are considered and their own perceptual curves are interacting in the same enclosure. Objective measurements and informal listening tests have confirmed the good behaviour of the single-user strategy.