Patent ID: 7826630

Claim:
A sound image localization apparatus, comprising: first signal processing means for convoluting an input audio signal with a first impulse response corresponding to a path from a reference sound source position to a listener's left ear to generate a first audio signal for localization; second signal processing means for convoluting the input audio signal with a second impulse response corresponding to a path from the reference sound source position to the listener's right ear to generate a second audio signal for localization; and third signal processing means for applying a third impulse response, other than the first and second impulse responses, so as to localize a sound image obtained by reproducing the first and second audio signals for localization at a position different from the reference sound source position, the third signal processing means is operable to convolute the input audio signal with the third impulse response and output an audio signal, the first and second signal processing means are operable to convolute the audio signal output from the third signal processing means with the first and second impulse responses, respectively, to generate the first and second audio signals for localization, and the first impulse response and the second impulse response form horizontal-direction localization and the third impulse response forms vertical-direction localization such that the first signal processing means and the second signal processing means perform horizontal-direction localization of the sound image and the third signal processing means performs vertical-direction localization of the sound image.