Psychoacoustics for improved audio reproduction and speaker protection

An apparatus, comprising:

• a transducer;
• and
• a controller coupled to the transducer and configured to perform steps comprising:
• receiving data corresponding to audio signals;
• modifying an energy content of the audio signals to form modified audio signals, wherein the modifying the energy content comprises applying a psychoacoustic model that modifies the energy content based, at least in part, on characteristics of the transducer;
• and
• outputting the modified audio signals to the transducer,
• wherein the controller is configured to receive data by receiving time-domain audio data, and wherein the controller is configured to modify the energy content by performing steps comprising:
• transforming the time-domain audio data into frequency-domain audio data;
• transforming the frequency-domain audio data into sub-band domain audio data, wherein the sub-band domain audio comprises audio data organized into a plurality of sub-bands;
• dynamically allocating compensation coefficients to the plurality of sub-bands;
• reverse transforming the compensation coefficients corresponding to the plurality of sub-bands back to the frequency domain;
• multiplying the frequency-domain audio data by the allocated compensation coefficients;
• and
• converting the multiplied frequency-domain audio data into processed time-domain audio data, wherein the processed audio data has modified signal power compared to the receiving digital or analog audio data, and wherein the modified audio signals output to the transducer are based, at least in part, on the processed time-domain audio data.

A mobile device, comprising:

• a microspeaker;
• an amplifier coupled to the microspeaker, wherein the amplifier is configured to receive an input audio signal and amplify the input audio signal for reproduction on the microspeaker;
• and
• a controller coupled to the amplifier, wherein the controller is configured to perform steps comprising:
• receiving data corresponding to audio signals;
• modifying an energy content of the audio signals to form modified audio signals, wherein the modifying the energy content comprises applying a psychoacoustic model that modifies the energy content based, at least in part, on characteristics of the transducer;
• and
• outputting the modified audio signals to the transducer as the input audio signal to the amplifier,
• wherein the controller is configured to receive data by receiving time-domain audio data, and wherein the controller is configured to modify the energy content by performing steps comprising:
• converting the time-domain audio data into frequency-domain audio data;
• converting the frequency-domain audio data into sub-band domain audio data, wherein the sub-band domain audio comprises audio data organized into a plurality of sub-bands;
• dynamically allocating compensation coefficients to the plurality of sub-bands;
• multiplying the frequency-domain audio data by the dynamically allocated compensation coefficients;
• and
• converting the multiplied frequency-domain audio data into processed audio data, wherein the processed audio data has reduced signal power compared to the receiving audio data, and wherein the reduced signal power protects the speaker from at least one of over current, over voltage, over excursion, or over temperature conditions without affecting at least one of a human-perceived loudness and human-perceived sound quality of the speaker,
• wherein the modified audio signals output to the amplifier are based, at least in part, on the processed audio data.