In this video tutorial from the online AES Show Fall 2020, Gregor Hohne explains how DSP can be integrated with transducers and amplifiers to optimize overall system performance.
Developments like ongoing miniaturization and increased availability of DSP power are allowing software algorithms to take over more and more tasks in loudspeaker systems that were traditionally solved by classic transducer and amplifier design. This can include compensation for significant distortion and undesired effects due to ageing and production variance as well as avoiding mechanical and thermal overload and amplifier clipping. With measured transducer and amplifier state variables and advanced modeling, the software achieves a sufficiently linear, time-invariant and thus predictable transfer function. This effectively merges the amplifier, software and transducer together into a single module, needing only a digital input signal and a power supply for operation and generating acoustical output. The tutorial gives an overview of the principles of such systems like adaptive nonlinear control and overload protection but focuses on the practical impacts for transducer and amplifier design. Another focus is the consequence on applications like the design of small portable speakers and on the interaction with other techniques like acoustic echo cancellation and beam forming.
