Patent ID: 7502477

Claim:
An audio reproducing apparatus, comprising: A distributing unit for receiving input audio signals of N channels (where N≧5, N is an integer) including at least a first channel signal, a second channel signal, a third channel signal, a fourth channel signal, a fifth channel signal including only low frequency content and an additional channel signal being the center channel; said distributing unit respectively combines said additional channel signal with said first channel signal and said second channel signal, and said distributing unit processes said fifth channel signal to produce combined signals of N−1 channels by respectively adding said fifth channel signal to at least said first channel signal, said second channel signal, said third channel signal and said fourth channel signal, wherein said combined signals represent the positions of sound images; a first signal processing unit for processing the combined signals of N−1 channels so as to produce first processed signals having an equivalent sound field of M (where M<N−1, M is an integer) speakers; and a second signal processing unit for equivalently processing the first processed signals corresponding to transfer functions from the M speakers to both ears of the listener and producing output audio signals, wherein the output audio signals of the second signal processing unit are reproduced with the M speakers.