Described are a headphone and a method for controlling an audio system. The method includes tapping a headphone, ear or head of a user to cause an acoustic pressure change in an ear canal of the user wherein the ear canal is sealed by an acoustic noise reduction (ANR) headphone having an ANR module. A current that is responsive to a pressure change in the ear canal and provided to the ANR module is sensed. A first peak in the sensed current is determined. A dual tap is determined to have occurred if a second peak in the sensed current is determined during a first time window initiated at the determination of the first peak. The use of dual taps for controlling an audio system can prevent unintended changes to an audio system that may otherwise occur as a result of an accidental or unintended tap for an audio system utilizing single tap control.

An electronic device is provided. The electronic device includes an audio module including a plurality of audio reception units and a plurality of audio output units and a processor electrically connected to the audio module and configured to receive sound via the plurality of audio reception units, generate antiphase signals based on waveforms of the received sound, determine directions in which to emit the antiphase signals, based on locations of the plurality of audio reception units, and emit the antiphase signals via the plurality of audio output units.

A method of removing noise and an electronic device thereof are provided. The electronic device includes a speaker, a first sensor configured to output a first signal by obtaining noise around the electronic device, a second sensor configured to output a second signal by detecting vibrations around the electronic device, and a controller configured to determine whether the second signal satisfies a condition of not exceeding a certain threshold value, and output an acoustic signal to be output through the speaker based on the first signal according to a result of the determination.

In a signal processing device, a signal processing method, a recording medium, and a rangehood apparatus, a filter coefficient is set in a sound cancelling filter, and the sound cancelling filter outputs a cancellation signal. A coefficient calculator calculates a first filter coefficient. An oscillation suppressor calculates a second filter coefficient by applying a window function to the first filter coefficient to set the second filter coefficient as the filter coefficient.

A headphone detector including a headphone and a processor. The headphone has a microphone and a speaker, and the microphone is configured to generate an audio signal based on an output of the speaker. The processor is configured to receive the audio signal, determine a characteristic of the audio signal, and assess whether the headphone is on ear or off ear based on a comparison of the characteristic to a threshold. In another aspect, an off-ear detection (OED) system includes a headphone and an OED processor. The headphone has a speaker, a feedforward microphone, and a feedback microphone. The OED processor is configured to determine whether the headphone is off ear or on ear, based at least in part on a headphone audio signal, a feedforward microphone signal, and a feedback microphone signal.

Acoustic noise reduction (ANR) headphones described herein have current detection circuitry that is used to detect current consumed by ANR circuitry as a result of pressure changes due to a tapping of a headphone, ear or head of a user. Tapping may be performed to change an audio feature or operating mode. The current detection circuitry senses a characteristic of the current that can be used to determine an occurrence of a tap event. Examples of a characteristic include an amplitude, waveform or duration of the sensed current. Advantageously, the ANR headphones avoid the need for control buttons to initiate the desired changes to the audio feature or operating mode. Error detection circuitry included in the ANR headphones can distinguish between a valid tap events and an occurrence of a different type of event that may otherwise be improperly be interpreted as a tap event.

Stability is provided in an active noise reduction (ANR) headphone by measuring a sound field to generate an input signal, filtering and applying a variable gain to the input signal to produce a first filtered signal using a first filter and a variable gain amplifier in an ANR signal pathway, outputting the filtered signal, and simultaneously with outputting the first filtered signal, sampling a signal at a point in the ANR signal pathway and filtering the sampled signal using a second filter to produce a second filtered signal. The second filtered signal is compared to a threshold, and if the comparison finds that the second filtered signal is greater than the threshold signal, the gain of the variable gain amplifier is changed to attenuate the first filtered signal. The second filter applies different gains, different by at least 10 dB, in different frequency ranges between 10 Hz and 10 kHz.

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.

An electronic device may include at least one microphone, a speaker, and a processor operatively connected to the at least one microphone and the speaker, wherein the processor may be configured to configure an operation frequency of the microphone as a first frequency and receive an external audio signal from the outside of the electronic device through the microphone operating in the first frequency, generate a first audio signal using the received external audio signal, acquire noise signal information, based on the first audio signal, output a second audio signal generated based on the noise signal information through the speaker, determine a second frequency, based on the generated second audio signal, and change the operation frequency of the microphone to the second frequency and receive the external audio signal from the outside of the electronic device through the microphone operating at the second frequency.

A method of enabling a hearer to hear desired sound while also being able to be aware of ambient sound, comprises providing a first non-audio signal representative of said desired sound, deriving a second non-audio signal from said ambient sound, combining the first and second non-audio signals in providing a third non-audio signal, and converting said third non-audio signal into sound.