Abstract:
Intra-concha earphones are disclosed. In an embodiment, an intra-concha earphone includes a housing having a rear space divided into a back volume, a bass duct, and a vent chamber between a driver and a rear wall. The vent chamber may be acoustically coupled with the back volume through both an acoustic port and the bass duct. Furthermore, the vent chamber may be acoustically coupled with a surrounding environment through a vent port, which may be a sole acoustic opening in the rear wall. Thus, sound emitted by the driver may propagate through the acoustic port and the bass duct to meet in the vent chamber before being discharged through the vent port to the surrounding environment. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
Abstract:
An earphone having an earphone housing including a tip portion dimensioned to be inserted into an ear canal of a wearer, a body portion extending outward from the tip portion, and a tube portion extending from the body portion. The body portion has a face portion that faces a pinna region of the ear when the tip portion is inserted into the ear canal. A primary output opening, that outputs sound from a driver in the housing to the ear canal, is formed in the tip portion. A secondary output opening, that outputs air from the ear canal to the surrounding environment, is formed in the face portion. The primary output opening and the secondary output opening are horizontally aligned when the tube portion is positioned vertically downward and an angle formed between the primary output opening, the tube portion and the secondary output opening is less than 90 degrees.
Abstract:
An earphone comprising: an earphone housing having a body portion, the body portion having an acoustic output opening to output sound from a driver positioned therein into an ear of a user; and an acoustic tuning member positioned within the body portion, the acoustic tuning member having (a) an open front portion that opens toward the driver and a back portion that defines a back volume chamber for the driver and (b) an acoustic pathway acoustically coupled to an acoustic output slot formed in the acoustic tuning member.
Abstract:
An audio system that adjusts one or more beam patterns emitted by one or more loudspeaker arrays based on the preferences of users/listeners is described. The audio system includes an audio receiver that contains a listener location estimator, a listener identifier, and a voice command processor. Inputs from the listener location estimator, the listener identifier, and the voice command processor are fed into an array processor. The array processor drives the one or more loudspeaker arrays to emit beam patterns into the listening area based on inputs from each of these devices. By examining the location, preferred usage settings, and voice commands from listeners, the generated beam patterns are customized to the explicit and implicit preferences of the listeners with minimal direct input. Other embodiments are also described.
Abstract:
An audio system is described that includes one or more speaker arrays that emit sound corresponding to one or more pieces of sound program content into associated zones within a listening area. Using parameters of the audio system (e.g., locations of the speaker arrays and the audio sources), the zones, the users, the pieces of sound program content, and the listening area, one or more beam pattern attributes may be generated. The beam pattern attributes define a set of beams that are used to generate audio beams for channels of sound program content to be played in each zone. The beam pattern attributes may be updated as changes are detected within the listening environment. By adapting to these changing conditions, the audio system is capable of reproducing sound that accurately represents each piece of sound program content in various zones.