Listening to loudspeaker music does not bother you

Scientists have found a way to help music lovers enjoy music through the speakers without disturbing the next.

"You can enjoy music without annoying headphones and not bothering people," said Chan-Hui Lee, research associate at the Korea Institute of Advanced Technology . The ' Personal Sound ' system developed by Lee and his team advocates bringing sound waves from multiple speakers to the listening area. Outside of this region, it is difficult to see these waves.

The research team has developed a prototype device that includes speakers about the size of 1.25 centimeters. Nine of these speakers are arranged in horizontal rows of about 33 centimeters. A difference of about 20 decibels in the intensity of sound waves between the listening and the periphery is equivalent to the difference between a normal conversation and a whisper.

Lee and associates say that this personal audio system can be used with laptops and televisions, but the main target audience is mobile phones and PDAs.

To fit into mobile devices such as phones, speakers need to be smaller in size. However, this type of speaker can not play the sound frequency appropriate for personal audio system. So, the research is still ongoing.

If such a sound system was born, listeners would probably have to keep the music player in front of them to hear the sound even though the designers were still perfecting the look of the system.

The study was presented Nov. 30 at a meeting of the American Acoustical Society in New Orleans.