Personal audio systems are designed to deliver spatially separated regions of audio to individual listeners. This paper demonstrates a method of personal audio system design that provides a level of contrast in the perceived speech intelligibility between bright and dark audio zones. Limitations in array directivity which would lead to a loss of privacy are overcome by reproducing a synthetic masking signal in the dark zone. This signal is optimized to provide effective masking whilst remaining subjectively pleasant to listeners. Results of this optimization from a simulated personal audio system are presented.

Authors: Wallace, Daniel; Cheer, Jordan
Affiliation: University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
AES Convention: 144 (May 2018) Paper Number: 10017
Publication Date: May 14, 2018 Import into BibTeX
Subject: Audio Processing and Effects – Part 2
Permalink: https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=19413

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