Laptop manufacturers are paying attention to audio quality to achieve a competitive edge in high-end models, and the multichannel speaker array design proposed by Audioscenic for Computer 2024 offers a glimpse into the future. Audioscenic Amphi position-adaptive 3D sound drives a completely new listening experience.
With advanced industrial design techniques, OEMs are making laptops lighter and thinner to meet consumer demand for mobility. This accelerating trend poses major challenges for stereo audio playback quality including diminished output volume and restricted stereo imaging. An array of small speakers powered with the multichannel beamforming technology intrinsic to Audioscenic Amphi can dramatically increase output and render enveloping, immersive spatial audio.
"Together with our project collaborators at Cirrus Logic and Zylux, we strongly believe that multichannel audio is the way forward to achieve 3D sound immersion without fatiguing headphones or clunky home theatre systems," says Marcos Simon, CTO and Co-Founder of Audioscenic, an expert in loudspeaker array and sound field control with more than a decade of research experience in the field of virtual acoustics. "This reference design advances sound field control for consumer electronics and redefines what is possible to achieve in 3D sound on the laptop form-factor."
Using the built-in laptop webcam, Amphi leverages Machine Learning to sense the alignment of the listener's ears relative to the laptop screen. This positional data enables beamforming, and drives a crosstalk cancellation process that unlocks spatial cues within music, movies, conference calls, and more to deliver exceptional 3D sound to the listener. Beamforming controls the size, shape, and direction of the acoustic wave directed to the listener. Crosstalk cancellation uses a filter process to separate left from right sound channels over speakers. Matched together by Audioscenic, these technologies enable listeners to perceive the full spatial soundscape embedded in content delivering hyper-real, accurate sound localization, maximized depth perception, and panoramic width that extends beyond the physical speakers.
Achieving spatial audio realism requires well-matched speakers that can be controlled to output without distortion in compact form factor designs. For this multichannel laptop project, Zylux contributed powerful micro-transducers designed to meet that rigorous standard. "For decades, Zylux has been serving multiple well-known brands in the PC laptop market as the audio solution provider," says Zylux CEO Will Lu. "We are excited to contribute to this advanced technology solution together with Audioscenic and Cirrus Logic to help further enhance audio performance in the limited mechanical space available in our customer's laptop products."
Computex 2024 attendees can experience the reference design demo for Windows PC laptops, experience theatre-like sound on a laptop, and meet the Audioscenic team of experts, at the Audioscenic meeting room located on the 9th Floor at the Courtyard Taipei, Taiwan.
www.zyluxacoustic.com
www.cirrus.com
www.audioscenic.com
