Sound Zones: On Performance Prediction of Contrast Control Methods

Low frequency personal sound zones can be created by controlling the squared sound pressure in separate spatial confined control regions. Several methods have been proposed for realizing this scenario, with different constraints and performance. Extrapolating knowledge of the resulting acoustic separation from predicted results is a challenge as the obtainable performance relies on both physical setup and the chosen evaluation procedure. In this paper, the influence of the evaluation method is highlighted. Using the proposed evaluation four different control strategies for generation of low frequency sound zones are compared in an experimental study with eight woofers surrounding two control zones.