Robust Room Equalization Using Sparse Sound-field Reconstruction

The perceived quality of a sound played in a closed room is often degraded by the added reverberation. In order to combat these effects, the methods of room impulse response equalization may be used. Typically, properties of the human auditory system, such as temporal masking, are used for a better control of the late echoes. There, a prefilter is used to modify the played signal, which renders the echoes inaudible for a given position. When targeting a human listener who is always performing small movement, the method fails due to the spatial mismatch. In such a case, a whole volume needs to be equalized, which requires a huge amount of measurements. In this work, we propose to reduce this burden by measuring only a random subset of the required room impulse responses and reconstruct a grid employing sparse methods. By further interpolation an equalization of the whole target area is achieved.