Electrical audio signal processing systems and devices – Binaural and stereophonic – Stereo sound pickup device
Patent
1994-05-27
1996-12-10
Kuntz, Curtis
Electrical audio signal processing systems and devices
Binaural and stereophonic
Stereo sound pickup device
H04R 500
Patent
active
055839428
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a device of the dummy head type for recording sound, comprising a supporting body provided with an anatomically faithful imitation of the human auricle coupled to a channel inside the body which opens into the imitated auricle, this channel corresponding to an auditory meatus of anatomical construction and length, and a microphone arranged behind the channel, such that the position of the membrane of the microphone relative to the imitated auditory meatus and auricle corresponds as much as possible to the anatomical position of the human eardrum relative to the associated auditory meatus and auricle.
Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,680,856. The known device has the shape of a human head. A number of components of the human head have been imitated so as to be anatomically faithful. This particularly applies to the associated auricles and the auditory meatuses. At the back end of each of the auditory meatuses, in exactly the same place where the eardrum is located in humans, the membrane of a microphone is arranged. It is believed that by means of such an artificial head, sound can be recorded with the highest possible fidelity, so as to enable reproduction with the highest possible fidelity afterwards. However, in practice, it has been found that recording sound by means of the known device is still not optimal.
The object of the present invention is to provide a device which is better capable of recording sound, such that a reproduction of an extremely high fidelity can be realized.
The object contemplated is realized according to the invention by means of a device of the type set forth in the opening paragraph hereof, wherein the supporting body is suspended from a plate and the channel has an open end on the side of the microphone, with the microphone arranged adjacent this open end in the space between the supporting body and the plate, such that an open connection is maintained with the imitated auditory meatus and the space outside the device.
Essential to the device according to the invention is the auditory meatus kept open on both sides of the imitated ear. Hence, the microphone is arranged such that an open connection is maintained with both the auditory meatus and the space outside the device. As a result, the auditory meatus forms, as it were, an open organ pipe for the sounds entering via the auricle and the energy transfer of the sounds occurs in a manner more or less analogous with that in nature. Thus, the sound has been found to be of an extremely high fidelity when reproduced later. The auditory meatus being open on both sides prevents interfering resonances occurring in an auditory meatus which is closed on one side by the microphone as a result of the formation of an undesired acoustic Helmholtz resonator in important frequency ranges. Further, the auditory meatus being open on both sides contributes to a better processing of the sound energy, modified via a physiological form (ear and auditory meatus), by the sound recorder (microphone).
It is further observed that German Offenlegungsschrift 37 33 494 discloses a device for recording sound, in which anatomically faithful imitations of the human auricle are utilized. FIG. 6 of that publication shows an embodiment with a microphone arranged in a chamber behind an imitated auditory meatus, this chamber being larger than the auditory meatus. However, a damping mass is arranged between the auditory meatus and the microphone. Accordingly, this construction is comparable to a closed organ pipe. Because of this dancing mass, the auditory meatus is not open on both sides.
Further, Patent Abstracts of Japan, Volume 2, No. 49, gives a summary of the invention described in JP-A-53.012,602. This publication relates to a microphone of the dummy head type having microphones accommodated in a dummy head, which connect to auricles via a channel. No anatomically faithful imitation seems to be involved here. Nor do the channels have an open end on the side of the microphones. On the other hand, there are additional c
REFERENCES:
patent: 4680856 (1987-07-01), Zuccarelli
patent: 5031216 (1991-07-01), Gorike et al.
John Sunier, "A History of Binaural Sound", Mar. 1986, pp 36-46.
Kuntz Curtis
Oh Minsun
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