Sound system remote control with acoustic sensor

Abstract

Automatic closed loop adjustment of a stereo sound system optimizes the sound quality at a particular listening location as sensed there by a microphone in a hand-held remote control unit. Such automatic capability is particularly beneficial for asymmetrical locations and may be applied to optimization of perceived channel balance with regard to various parameters such as gain, equalization and time delay, and which are thus inconvenient to set up manually. A hand-held remote control capable of adjusting the stereo system, typically via an infrared link, is additionally equipped with a microphone which senses sound from each stereo loudspeaker at the listening location. The stereo unit is equipped to generate special test signals that are picked up by the microphone and analyzed to provide adjustment information via the remote control link to automatically adjust various parameters in each channel so as to optimize the sound quality as perceived at the particular current listening location where the remote control is located. The remote control's infrared link is utilized as part of a closed loop of an automatic control system in which acoustic information gathered by the microphone is analyzed to control compensatory adjustments.