Automatic noise-reduction (ANR) headsets include circuitry that cancels or suppress undesired noises. Recent years have seen the emergence of in-the-ear (ITE) earphones that incorporate ANR technology; however, designing them to function well usually entails many design tradeoffs, such as using larger ear nozzles that are uncomfortable to obtain desired noise reduction or that require added structures to hold the earphones to a user ear. To avoid these tradeoffs, the present inventors devised, among other things, an exemplary ITE ANR earphone that places its error measurement microphone in the ear nozzle that connects the driver front acoustic volume to a user ear canal. This placement allows use of a narrower more comfortable ear nozzle without compromising noise reduction and without requiring added holding structures. Moreover, the narrower ear nozzle also lowers the likelihood that the ANR circuitry will become unstable and produce undesirable noise.

Active noise control systems, devices, and methods are disclosed herein. Anti-snoring systems can include a first pillow unit having at least one error microphone and at least one speaker, at least one reference microphone configured to capture sound produced proximate to the at least one reference microphone, and a control unit operatively coupled to the first pillow unit and the at least one reference microphone. In some aspects, the control unit can be configured to produce an anti-noise in the at least one speaker disposed in the first pillow unit by processing signals received from the at least one error microphone and the at least one reference microphone using gated dynamic adjustments such that the anti-noise cancels any sound produced proximate the at least one reference.

The present disclosure relates to a hearing device that comprises an in-canal microphone configured for pick-up of at least body conducted sound in a user's ear canal volume and a vibration sensor configured for pick-up of mechanical vibration generated by body-conducted sound of the user for example by vibration of ear canal tissue. A processing unit of the hearing device determines a first compensation signal for cancelling the at least body-conducted sound in the user's ear canal volume based on sound picked-up by the in-canal microphone. The processing unit determines a second compensation signal for cancelling the at least body-conducted sound in the user's ear canal volume based on a vibration signal supplied by the vibration sensor.

According to the present disclosure there is provided an active acoustic control system for controlling an acoustic signal propagating along a propagation path, the system comprising: an active control unit configured to: receive information from a first sensor arrangement, the information related to the acoustic signal propagating along the propagation path; generate a control signal for controlling the acoustic signal based on the information from the first sensor arrangement, by being arranged to control: a first control source arrangement comprising a finite 2D array of first control sources for generating a first control signal for controlling a first component of the acoustic signal.

According to the present disclosure there is provided an active acoustic control system for controlling an acoustic signal propagating along a propagation path, the system comprising: an active control unit configured to: receive information from a first sensor arrangement, the information related to the acoustic signal propagating along the propagation path; generate a control signal for controlling the acoustic signal based on the information from the first sensor arrangement, by being arranged to independently control: a first control source arrangement for generating a first control signal to control a first component of the acoustic signal; and a second control source arrangement for generating a second control signal to control a second component of the acoustic signal.

The invention relates to a method for eliminating room modes . The method consists substantially in using a digital signal processor (60) to generate and store a filter W*(z) in a two-stage characteristic measurement, which filter characterises and maps the sound changes of a user signal N emitted into a room (10) by a main loudspeaker (21), including the room modes generated in this way. The filter W*(z) generates a changed signal N-from the digitally available user signal N. which is played by the main loudspeaker (21), to eliminate the room modes , which changed signal is played by a correction loudspeaker. The two signals cancel each other out in the room (10). Because passage through the filter W(z) requires a certain time dt, the original signal N remains completely audible in the room (10) and cannot be eliminated. The signal can therefore eliminate only the portion of the soundwaves in the room (10) that is still present after this time dt. This ensures that the original signal N is audible in the room (10) completely and unchanged in comparison with the source, while the long-lasting room modes are eliminated after a short time dt. The main and correction loudspeakers (21, 22) may be the same loudspeaker (23). The invention also relates to a digital signal processor (60) provided for this purpose and to a loudspeaker (21, 22, 23).

A method may include adaptively generating an anti-noise signal for countering the effects of ambient audio sounds at an acoustic output of the transducer by adapting a response of an adaptive filter that filters a reference microphone signal in conformity with an error microphone signal and the reference microphone signal to minimize the ambient audio sounds in the error microphone, generating a scaled anti-noise signal by applying a scaling factor to the anti-noise signal, further adjusting the response of the adaptive filter independent of a source audio signal by altering an input to the coefficient control block of the adaptive filter to compensate for the scaling factor, and combining the scaled anti-noise signal with the source audio signal to generate an audio signal provided to the transducer.

Active noise control systems, devices, and methods are disclosed herein. Anti-snoring systems can include a first pillow unit having at least one error microphone and at least one speaker, at least one reference microphone configured to capture sound produced proximate to the at least one reference microphone, and a control unit operatively coupled to the first pillow unit and the at least one reference microphone. In some aspects, the control unit can be configured to produce an anti-noise in the at least one speaker disposed in the first pillow unit by processing signals received from the at least one error microphone and the at least one reference microphone using gated dynamic adjustments such that the anti-noise cancels any sound produced proximate the at least one reference.

Systems and methods for active noise reduction and occlusion reduction based on seal quality of an in-the-ear (ITE) module inserted into a user's ear canal are provided. An example method includes receiving one or more acoustic signals. Each of the acoustic signals represents at least one captured sound having at least one of a voice component and an unwanted noise. The voice component may include the user's own voice. A quality of a seal of an ear canal is determined based at least partially on the acoustic signals. If the quality of the seal exceeds a predetermined threshold value, an occlusion reduction is performed on the acoustic signals to improve the voice component. If the quality of the seal is below a predetermined threshold value, active noise reduction is performed on the acoustic signals to reduce the unwanted noise.

Active noise control systems, devices, and methods are disclosed herein. Anti-snoring systems can include a first pillow unit having at least one error microphone and at least one speaker, at least one reference microphone configured to capture sound produced proximate to the at least one reference microphone, and a control unit operatively coupled to the first pillow unit and the at least one reference microphone. In some aspects, the control unit can be configured to produce an anti-noise in the at least one speaker disposed in the first pillow unit by processing signals received from the at least one error microphone and the at least one reference microphone using gated dynamic adjustments such that the anti-noise cancels any sound produced proximate the at least one reference.