JP2011250381A - Frontward localization headphone - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a headphone for localizing a sound image in front of a listener. SOLUTION: A concave acoustic lens for converting a spherical wave generated by a headphone driver into an approximate plane wave is incorporated.

Description

  The present invention relates to a headphone that makes it possible to obtain a realistic audible feeling without discomfort by localizing a sound image in front of a listener.

  With regard to headphone localization, many studies have been conducted so far, and accurate time delays for left and right sounds equivalent to listening to real sounds through binaural recording, etc., have been incorporated. It wasn't.

The results of many studies on the front localization of headphones so far suggest that in addition to hearing that reaches the eardrum as sound vibrations, the ear has a function that can recognize auditory distance. I have to.
As a means for recognizing that the sound source is sufficiently forward, the sound wave is an approximate plane wave from the front that vibrates almost the entire ear.

In general, a headphone driver generates a spherical wave, which needs to be converted into a sound close to a plane wave.
In order to solve this, the spherical wave from the headphone driver 1 of FIG. 1 is approximately converted to a plane wave by the concave acoustic lens 2.
By attaching the frontal dimensions of both left and right ears with the vertical dimension in Fig. 2 as the size of the ears, the entire ear can be covered with a plane wave from the front, and the ears are reliably recognized as sound in front. can do.
Since the sound other than the necessary direction becomes an obstacle to the forward localization, it is absorbed by the sound absorbing material 3 covering the inside of the case 4.

According to the present invention, it is possible to obtain a reliable forward localization rather than an in-head localization with a sense of incongruity as heard with conventional headphones.
The physical difference between the left and right sounds included during stereo recording includes localization information before and after, and can reproduce the sound image of the space during recording.

It is a plane sectional view showing the internal structure of a headphone unit. It is side surface sectional drawing of a headphone unit.

1 …… Driver unit 2 …… Acoustic lens 3 …… Sound absorbing material 4 …… Case

The acoustic lens is a concave paraboloid to bring the spherical wave closer to the plane wave, and is arranged so that the virtual center of the headphone driver comes to the focal point.
Sound from the front reaches the eardrum by reflection of the pinna and tragus, but the deterioration of sound quality is suppressed by using a material having the same physical characteristics as the acoustic lens.

Claims (1)

Built-in acoustic lens with a concave shape to make the spherical wave generated by the headphone driver an approximate plane wave, and using the approximate plane wave from the front of the ear, the sound image can be localized in front of the listener Features headphones.

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