Spherical Loudspeaker

Summary

Between 2005 and 2010, I was a staff researcher in an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at UC Berkeley, where we created unique spatial audio experiences with the world's highest channel count compact spherical loudspeaker array consisting of 120 1-inch acoustic drivers embedded in a 20cm radius sphere. 

I was responsible for programming the system's front-end API, enabling composers and interaction designers to drive real-time spatialization algorithms using high-level parameters. I also researched new interaction design patterns for directional loudspeaker arrays, created implementations of spatial audio effects such as apparent source width modulation (ASW), and developed new spatial audio effects for spherical systems, including a novel mathematical framework for dynamic spherical resonance models inspired by prior work with resonance synthesis techniques in the audio domain.

This work was supported in part by Meyer Sound Laboratories of Berkeley, CA; the creators of world-class high-power sound systems with a linear-phase response, ensuring zero "coloration" is introduced by the loudspeaker system other than what is intended by the sound engineer.