Evaluation of a Personal Sound Zone System Implemented with Low-Cost Multimedia Devices

Abstract

In a personal sound zone (PSZ) system, the subjective quality of the audio reaching the bright zone depends on the accuracy of the estimation of the acoustic response between each loudspeaker and the listener's position, known as the room impulse response (RIR). Typically, the estimation of the RIR must be carried out at a stage prior to the implementation of the PSZ system, using quasi-professional equipment. However, we use multimedia devices every day that could also perform RIR estimation, such as a smartphone connected to a wireless loudspeaker. This paper presents a comparison of a PSZ system for three sets of RIRs estimated by: 1) an Android device connected to a Bluetooth loudspeaker, 2) an array of Brüel&Kjaer (BK) microphones and the same loudspeaker, 3) an array of BK microphones and an array of JBL loudspeakers. The evaluation is performed using objective metrics and a subjective psychoacoustic test.