A significant amount of effort has been focused on improving user experience with respect to visual displays in the home environment. For example, a significant amount of research and advancement has occurred with respect to visual quality of traditional displays (e.g., such as televisions and computer monitors), and also with respect to opportunistically leveraging other displays that happened to be in the environment (e.g. “stitching” multiple displays together to make a larger display, moving visual content across multiple displays, etc.). Enhancing an audio experience of the user, however, has lagged behind.
Referring to audio systems in general, while the electronics that generate sounds can have a relatively strong effect on soundscapes and the listening experience, room design and environmental acoustics strongly impact perceived audio quality. One technique for enhancing audio quality output by an audio system is to customize the design of a room in which the audio system will be utilized. This frequently occurs in movie theaters, auditoriums, and the like. Other types of rooms, however, such as classrooms, living rooms, etc., are typically not designed to take into consideration acoustic properties.
An exemplary approach used in connection with some audio systems is to attempt to model acoustic properties of a room utilizing a calibration signal and corresponding microphone. Typically, a user will arrange a set of speakers in a room and locate herself in a position where she will typically be listening to audio output by the audio system. The user is additionally provided with a microphone, and the audio system outputs a calibration signal when the user is at the location where she typically will listen to the audio produced by the audio system. The calibration signal typically includes sounds in all frequency bands supported by the audio system. Audio captured by the microphone is subsequently analyzed to compute a frequency response for the audio system (based upon the location of the microphone). An equalizer of the audio system is then updated based upon the computed frequency response, thereby taking into consideration impact of the environment on audio output by the audio system.
There are several deficiencies associated with this approach. First, the calibration is static—that is, if furniture is rearranged in the room that includes the audio system, the equalizer will no longer be properly calibrated. Second, the equalizer is not calibrated for all positions in the room. Thus, if the user positions herself in a position in the room that is different from her position when the equalizer was calibrated, the listener will be provided with sub-optimal audio.