Patent ID: 8923526

Claim:
An audio device which produces audio signals suited to each of a plurality of audio output-targeted devices connected to the audio device, wherein the audio output-targeted devices include a plurality of non-speaker audio output-targeted devices, the audio device comprising: a first output part which is configured to output an audio signal to at least one speaker; a second input/output part which is configured to obtain a plurality of audio reproduction ability information from the audio output-targeted devices, wherein the plurality of audio reproduction ability information comprises a channel count of the audio device and channel counts representative of the non-speaker audio output-targeted devices; a memory which is configured to store the plurality of audio reproduction ability information; a third input/output part which is configured to provide a source device with arbitrary audio reproduction ability information precluding audio reproduction ability information that represents a minimum reproduction ability from among the plurality of audio reproduction ability information; and a signal processor which: performs down-mixing on audio signals that are read from the source device if an audio reproduction ability information of a first non-speaker audio output-targeted device is lower than the arbitrary audio reproduction ability information, wherein the second input/output part outputs the down-mixed audio signals to the first non-speaker audio output-targeted device, and performs signal processing on audio signals that are read from the source device, without down-mixing the audio signals, if an audio reproduction ability information of a second non-speaker audio output-targeted device is higher than the arbitrary audio reproduction ability information, wherein the second input/output part outputs the processed audio signals to the second non-speaker audio output-targeted device.