VIRTUAL BASS EXPANSION FOR CROSS-TALK CANCELLATION SYSTEMS

Cross talk cancelation (CTC) allows speaker systems to produce binaural audio. This allows rendering of immersive 3D audio that conventionally can only be consumed using headphones. Soundbars suited to CTC as well as small speaker systems such as those found in laptops are many times restricted by size and cost, which lead to a reduced bass response because of small speaker drivers. CTC capability also diminishes with decreasing frequency, which leads to overall poor performance at low frequency. Virtual bass expansion (VBE) systems have been developed to extend the bandwidth of such speakers by use of the ‘missing fundamental’ psychoacoustic effect. VBE has been used successfully in car audio systems as well as in phones and laptop speakers [1] [2]. Audio producers can also benefit from commercially available VBE plugins [3].