KR19990038888U - Portable audio player - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention discloses a portable audio player suitable for use as an MP3 player and / or an FM receiver.

The audio player of the present invention extends the two subfolders from the main body located behind the user's neck to support the earphones by the ear hooks on the user's ears, thereby providing a portable audio player without cumbersome connecting lines.

Description

Portable audio player {PORTABLE AUDIO PLAYER}

The present invention relates to a portable audio player, and more particularly, to a portable audio player suitable for configuration as an MP3 player.

With the popularity of computers and the proliferation of communication, computer music has been rapidly developed and various types of audio data are used.

Such audio data is roughly classified into sampling data obtained by sampling the audio signal itself and sound source data using a separate sound source.

First, since the sound source data is composed of a series of control signals for controlling a sound source such as a separate FM sound source or a MIDI sound source, it is not actual audio data, but the size of the sound source can be configured very small, and has been widely used.

Examples of such sound source data formats include ROL using an FM sound source, IMS and OKA using the same. A MlD using a MIDI sound source and WRK, SNG, or its own standard, OKM, NOB, ST3, etc. are used.

However, since the sound source data is a continuation of the control signals of the sound source as described above, it is impossible to make actual sound data, for example, a song of a particular singer or a performance performance song, and has been mainly used for programs such as karaoke.

On the other hand, sampling data is from VOC used in DOS environment, WAV used in IBM Windows environment, AIF format used in Mac environment, etc. These digitalized voice signals are digitized at a predetermined sampling rate. Although excellent, the data is so large that it is difficult to use beyond the fragmentary sound effect.

Accordingly, voice compression techniques have been developed to compress the sampled data. The simplest compression technique is a method of reducing the number of bits in digitalization or lowering the sampling rate.

An example of using such a compression method is an RA used for Internet broadcasting, which can transmit data in real time by minimizing data size using 4 or 5 bit lower bits, but sound quality cannot be guaranteed. In addition, there are relatively high compression formats such as Adaptive Delta Pulse Code Modulation (ADPCM). However, the compression ratio is not enough to be widely used in various media.

Accordingly, various studies have been conducted to improve the compression rate while preventing sound quality deterioration, and the most successful of them is the MPEG format.

The MPEG format uses a perceptual coding method, which removes an audio or video signal by sound or image quality by removing an unrecognized signal such as a weak signal after a strong signal. It can be compressed at high compression rate without deterioration.

In particular, the recently used MPEG layer 3 is generally referred to as MP3, which provides high quality and compression rate for 8 hours of audio data on a single CD-ROM with almost the same sound quality as the original sound. do.

Accordingly, MP3 has recently been explosively used in computer and communication fields as a data format such as popular songs including live voices of singers.

The biggest reason for the popularity of MP3 is that users can freely collect and use only the songs they want, and the sound quality is excellent enough to be close to the original sound.

The popularity of MP3s will likely replace much of the music market in the future, and as a result, MP3 players, which specialize in playing them, have recently emerged.

Fig. 1 shows a schematic configuration of an MP3 player for playing such MP3 files.

In FIG. 1, the MP3 player controlled by the microprocessor 200 includes a parallel interface 260 in communication with a computer PC and a serial interface 270 in communication with a flash memory F. The MP3 file transferred from is stored and recalled in the flash memory (F).

The MP3 file called from the flash memory F is decoded, that is, decompressed by the MP3 decoder 210, and then reproduced through the D / A converter 2200 to an output 230 such as headphones.

Meanwhile, the MP3 player may be used for recording and reproducing voice. The voice information input through the microphone 290 is digitally converted by the A / D converter 280 and then the APPCM encoder 212 through the serial interface 270. ) Is stored in the flash memory F in the compressed state, and decompressed by the ADPCM decoder 211 in the reverse order to be reproduced.

Meanwhile, a key 250, a display device (LCD), and a control unit 240 are provided to control the MP3 player.

If the MP3 player is not portable, the output unit 230 includes an amplifier and a speaker, and the output unit 230 generally includes headphones.

By the way, the headphone damages the condition of the hair, especially the permanent hair, etc. Recently, a neck phone as shown in FIG. 2 has appeared.

In FIG. 2, the neckphone has an arm 12 extending in a U shape along the back of the user's neck, and an ear hook 13 and an ear hook 13 which are caught by the user's ear at both ends of the arm 12. It consists of an earphone 14 attached to the tip of the pad and a pad thereof. Japanese patent applications for Sony are pending.

However, the neckphone also has a main body is configured separately, so the user is holding the body in his hand or on the waist, and the long connection line from the neckphone on the head is bound to extend.

This connection line is bound to impede the user's activities such as cycling and jogging, the neckphone does not ruin the hairstyle, the problem of carrying and using is no different from the conventional headphones.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an audio player that is extremely convenient to carry and use since there is no cumbersome connection line.

1 is a block diagram showing a general configuration of an MP3 player;

2 is a side view of main parts of a neckphone commonly used in a conventional audio player;

3 is a perspective view showing a configuration of an inventive audio player;

4 is a side view of the main portion of the neckphone,

5 (A) and (B) is a side view and a front view showing a wearing state of the present invention regenerator,

6 is a block diagram of the inventive device,

7 is a perspective view showing one configuration of a lighter that can be used for data input of the inventive device;

8A and 8B are side views of both neckphones showing an example of the key configuration of the inventive player.

<Description of the code used in the main part of the drawing>

U: User 1: Body

2: arm 3: ear hook

4: ear phone 5: pad

6: key

Audio player according to the present invention for achieving the above object

Body located behind the user's neck,

Two arms extending from the body toward both ears of the user,

Two earphones in contact with the user's ear at the tip of each arm,

It is characterized by having two ear hooks to hold the earphones to the user's ear.

According to one feature of the present invention, the main body houses an MP3 player and / or an FM receiver. According to another feature, the earhook extends upwards from the earphones inward to the seventh shape so as to extend the upper part of the ear from the front to the rear.

According to this configuration, since the main body of the audio player is located behind the neck and the connecting line can be embedded or attached to the arm, a compact portable audio player can be provided that does not interfere with the user's activity at all.

(Example)

Such specific features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In Fig. 3, the audio player according to the present invention has a main body 1 which is located behind the user's neck, and a head arm 2 which extends from the main body 1 to two earphones 4 which are to be placed in the user's ears. do. Earphone 4 is provided with a pad (5) covering the ear and the ear hook (3) caught on the ear.

Here, the arm 2 has a built-in or attached connection line for connecting the main body 1 and the earphone 4, the inventive audio player has a very compact configuration because there is no cumbersome connection line.

The disadvantage of the inventive audio player is that the main body 1 is located behind the user's neck and its weight is supported in contact with the user's skin.

Accordingly, the inventive audio player is difficult to be used as a player having a mechanical component such as a heavy cassette deck such as a cassette tape player, and is used as an audio player having only a chip type electronic component such as a radio or an MP3 player. Suitable for In the following embodiment, the audio player is constituted by a playback-only MP3 player using the flash memory F in which the MP3 file is stored, and preferably further includes an FM receiver.

Another problem that occurs when the main body 1 is in contact with the skin of the neck is that sweat is easily penetrated into the main body 1, and the sweat is a particularly corrosive liquid containing salt, and therefore, is particularly susceptible to damage to electronic components. In order to prevent this, the casing of the main body 1 is preferably sealed by a user's neck with a rubber gasket and a vinyl tarpaulin.

On the other hand, in order to prevent the discomfort of the user's contact in the event of sweating, it is preferable to attach an appropriate hygroscopic pad to the neck contact portion of the main body 1 in a replaceable configuration via a velcro (trade name).

On the other hand, although not shown separately, for convenience of storage, the arm 2 may be folded to the main body 1 or a configuration in which the length of the arm 2 may be used.

4 shows a preferred configuration of the one-side earphone 4, where the ear hook 3 extends in a seven-shape from the earphone 4 inwardly upward from the earphone 4, unlike the conventional configuration of FIG. Will be caught.

In the ear hook 13 of FIG. 2, the arm 12 comes into contact with the back of the ear, which may cause dermatitis, etc. during long-term use, while the ear hook 3 of the present invention has only the tip of the ear hook 3. Since it comes in contact with the ear like a pair of glasses, the contact area and the contact pressure become small, which does not cause any problem.

5 (A) and (B) show the wearing state of the present audio player, since the main body 1 is supported by the back of the neck while the earhook 3 is caught by the user U's ear. This is distributed so you don't feel much more weight than a simple neckphone.

On the other hand, the key 6 such as a push button for controlling the audio player has the main body 1 behind the neck, so the user U must check the required key 6 only by the sense of the hand.

Accordingly, the key 6 is preferably located on both sides of the main body 1 or provided in the earphone 4 as shown. The configuration thereof will be described later with reference to FIG. 8.

Fig. 6 shows a block diagram when the inventive audio player is configured as an MP3 playback exclusive device.

This configuration is to decode the MP3 file stored in the flash memory (F) to the MP3 decoder (110) by the control of the microprocessor (10O) and output directly to the output unit 130 through the D / A converter (120) Compared with the conventional MP3 player shown in Figure 1 has a very simple configuration, it is possible to cheap configuration. The remaining codes 150 and 140 are keys and their control units.

Since the inventive audio player does not have a separate interface, it is necessary to store the MP3 file in advance in a flash memory F by a separate device, and a writer is illustrated in FIG. 7.

This is a commercially available flash memory writer with a cable (L) and a connector (N) in the interface (E), which is connected to the parallel port (K) of the computer (C) and the MP3 file embedded in the computer (C). Is written into the flash memory (F).

8 shows a preferred configuration of the key 6 for controlling the inventive audio player. For example, (A) is the right earphone 4, and (B) is the left earphone 4.

As described above, the user U needs to check the required key 6 only by the senses. For this purpose, the key 6 of both earphones 4 is suitable to be at most two or less.

However, since the key required for a general MP3 player is ON / OFF, PLAY, FF, STOP, REW, FR, volume, and the like, the key 6 of the audio player of the present invention is preferably configured by using the minimum number. .

For example, the right earphone (4 in FIG. 8A) is provided with a play key 6a and a stop key 6b, and the play key 6a is PLAY once pressed and fast forward when pressed twice. (FF), and the stop key 6b acts as the STOP key in the play state, followed by the ON / OFF key.

On the other hand, the left earphone (4 in Fig. 8B) is provided with an FM key 6d when the volume key 6c and the FM receiver are built in. When the FM key 6d is pressed when the stop key 6b is turned on, the FM receiver Pre-set broadcast stations may be sequentially selected one by one.

On the other hand, the volume key 6c increases the volume by a corresponding step each time the digital key 6c is pressed. In order to decrease the volume, any one of the remaining keys 6a, 6b, and 6d is shifted to a shift key. For example, when the stop key 6b and the volume key 6c are pressed at the same time, the volume is reduced.

As described above, according to the present invention, a portable audio player that can be implemented as an FM receiver or an MP3 playback exclusive device is extremely easy to carry and use.

Claims (4)

In a portable audio player, The main body 1 located behind the neck of the user U, Two arms 2 extending from the main body 1 toward both ears of the user U on both sides, Two earphones 4 positioned at the tip of each arm 2 and in contact with the ears of the user U; A portable audio player, characterized in that it comprises two ear hooks (3) to hold the earphone (4) caught in the ear of the user (U). The method of claim 1, Portable audio player, characterized in that the main body (1) is provided with a dedicated MP3 player. The method according to claim 1 or 2, Portable audio player, characterized in that the main body (1) is further provided with an FM receiver. The method of claim 1, The ear hook (3) extends inwardly upward from the earphone (4) in a seven-character shape, characterized in that it extends from front to back on the top of the ear.