A home audio system that includes an audio receiver and one or more loudspeaker arrays is described. The audio receiver measures the acoustic properties of the room in which the loudspeaker arrays reside and the audio characteristics of the sound program content to be played through the loudspeaker arrays. Based on these measurements, the audio receiver assigns a directivity ratio and potentially various beam patterns to one or more segments of the sound program content. The assigned directivity ratio is used by the receiver to play the segment of the sound program content through the loudspeaker arrays. Other embodiments are also described.