Patent ID: 8126159

Claim:
A sound system for creating personalized sound zones, comprising: one or more audio sources; speakers each of which is related to one or more sound zones that are associated with a space; a transducer operative to pick up noise in a particular sound zone, the picked up noise including undesired audio from any of the audio sources and/or the voice of an occupant in another sound zone; a noise suppressor operative to produce a noise suppression value from a correlation between any noise picked up in the particular sound zone and audio input from the audio sources for that sound zone and, based on a desired sound level of the audio input in that sound zone, to apply the noise suppression value for suppressing the picked up noise and rendering that sound zone substantially free of the picked up noise, wherein the noise suppressor is operative to selectively recognize voice sounds external to that sound zone and prevent the noise suppression value from including the voice sounds such that a voice from outside that sound zone is audible within the sound zone while other noise is suppressed; and an audio router with a control element and one or more channels for routing audio inputs from the audio sources to the one or more sound zones; and one or more consoles with display and user interface for selecting audio inputs from among the audio sources and a destination from one or more sound zones, said user interface including a zones control that enables a selection of pre-determined sound zone configurations designating the particular sound zones that will become the destination for the audio sources selected for the particular sound zones.