A spatial audio processing system and method including the steps of: dividing the series of virtual speakers into a series of horizontal planes around the expected listener; rendering the audio source to an intermediate spatial format for playback over a series of virtual speakers arranged in each of the series of planes around the listener, the rendering including: an initial panning of the spatialized virtual audio source to each of the horizontal planes to produce a plane rendered audio emission; a subsequent panning of each of the plane rendered audio emissions to a series of virtual speaker locations within each plane, with the subsequent panning utilizing a series of panning curves which are spatially smoothed to can include spatial frequency components which are less than the Nyquist sampling rate of the audio source.

The present technique relates to an encoding device and a method, a decoding device and a method, and a program capable of obtaining higher quality audio. An encoding unit encodes position information and a gain of an object in a current frame in multiple encoding modes. A compressing unit generates, for each combination of encoding modes of each pieces of position information and gains, encoded meta data including encoding mode information indicating the encoding modes and encoded data which are the encoded position information and gains, and compresses the encoding mode information included in the encoding meta data. A determining unit selects encoded meta data of which amount of data is the least from among the encoded meta data generated for each combination, thus determining the encoding mode of each pieces of position information and gains. The present technique can be applied to an encoder and a decoder.

A device which produces the necessary directional audio signals for a 3-dimensional audio playback and which in that case uses as input signals the available channels of an audio recording intended for 2-dimensional audio playback. By taking psychoacoustic effects into account the desired spatial 3D audio effect is produced by a targeted use of signal delays, frequency-dependent amplitude matchings and a limited use of reverberation effects in conjunction with a targetedly asymmetric processing.

Embodiments are described for rendering spatial audio content through a system that is configured to reflect audio off of one or more surfaces of a listening environment. The system includes an array of audio drivers distributed around a room, wherein at least one driver of the array of drivers is configured to project sound waves toward one or more surfaces of the listening environment for reflection to a listening area within the listening environment and a renderer configured to receive and process audio streams and one or more metadata sets that are associated with each of the audio streams and that specify a playback location in the listening environment.

A system can include a hardware processor that can receive left and right audio signals and process the left and right audio signals to generate three or more processed audio signals. The three or more processed audio signals can include a left audio signal, a right audio signal, and a center audio signal. The processor can also filter each of the left and right audio signals with one or more first virtualization filters to produce filtered left and right signals. The processor can also filter a portion of the center audio signal with a second virtualization filter to produce a filtered center signal. Further, the processor can combine the filtered left signal, filtered right signal, and filtered center signal to produce left and right output signals and output the filtered left and right output signals.

A system can include a hardware processor that can receive left and right audio signals and process the left and right audio signals to generate three or more processed audio signals. The three or more processed audio signals can include a left audio signal, a right audio signal, and a center audio signal. The processor can also filter each of the left and right audio signals with one or more first virtualization filters to produce filtered left and right signals. The processor can also filter a portion of the center audio signal with a second virtualization filter to produce a filtered center signal. Further, the processor can combine the filtered left signal, filtered right signal, and filtered center signal to produce left and right output signals and output the filtered left and right output signals.

An audio processing system, such as an upmixer, may be capable of separating diffuse and non-diffuse portions of N input audio signals. The upmixer may be capable of detecting instances of transient audio signal conditions. During instances of transient audio signal conditions, the up-mixer may be capable of adding a signal-adaptive control to a diffuse signal expansion process in which M audio signals are output. The upmixer may vary the diffuse signal expansion process over time such that during instances of transient audio signal conditions the diffuse portions of audio signals may be distributed substantially only to output channels spatially close to the input channels. During instances of non-transient audio signal conditions, the diffuse portions of audio signals may be distributed in a substantially uniform manner.

An audio signal processing apparatus includes: an obtaining unit which obtains a stereo signal including an R signal and an L signal; a control unit which generates a processed R signal and a processed L signal by performing (i) a first process of convolving pairs of right- and left-ear head related transfer functions into the R signal so that a sound image of the R signal is localized at each of two or more different positions at a right side of a listener; and (ii) a second process of convolving pairs of right- and left-ear head related transfer functions into the L signal so that a sound image of the L signal is localized at each of two or more different positions at a left side of the listener; and an output unit which outputs the processed R signal and the processed L signal.

A speaker system is disclosed for providing customised acoustical wavefronts with vertical and horizontal pattern control and amplitude and phase control. The system including a speaker housing (1) having therein at least a first array (2) of high frequency driver segments (3) and at least a secondary array (4) of low frequency driver segments (5) disposed behind said first array (2), said first array having sufficient space between said driver segments (3) to allow acoustic transparency whereby a wavefront from said secondary array (4) can substantially pass through said first array (2).

A method for processing audio signals for creating a three dimensional sound environment includes: receiving at least one input signal from at least one sound source; creating a simulated signal at least partly based on the received at least one input signal, the simulated signal representing a simulation of at least one input signal reflecting from the ground or a floor; and creating an output signal at least partly on the basis of the simulated signal and the at least one received input signal, the output signal including a plurality of audio channels; at least two channels of the audio channels of the output signal representing signals for sound transducers above a listener's ear level at a nominal listening position, and at least two channels of the audio channels of the output signal representing signals for sound transducers below a listener's ear level at a nominal listening position.