Patent ID: 7840012

Claim:
An audio conditioning apparatus for conditioning an audio signal to be output, said audio conditioning apparatus comprising: an input for receiving the audio signal; a noise characterizing unit for determining a noise level of environmental noise solely in a mid-range frequency noise band; a volume amplification unit coupled to said input for amplifying a volume of the audio signal for all frequencies of the audio signal by a volume gain in dependence on solely the noise level in the mid-range frequency noise band; a further noise characterizing unit for determining a further noise level of the environmental noise in either a bass frequency noise band or a treble frequency noise band; and a further amplification unit coupled to an output of said volume amplification unit for amplifying by a further gain the amplitude of frequency components in a bass frequency audio band or a treble frequency audio band of the audio signal, the value of said further in being dependent solely on the further noise level of the environmental noise in the base or treble frequency band, respectively, to perceptually mask the environmental noise in the base frequency noise band or the treble frequency noise band from a respective base frequency or treble frequency audio band of the volume amplified audio signal, wherein said mid-range frequency noise band being complementary to said base frequency noise band and said treble frequency noise band, covering frequencies not in said base frequency noise band and said treble frequency noise band, and wherein said audio conditioning apparatus further comprises: a gain dispatcher unit coupled to said input for allocating a maximum allowable gain of the volume amplification unit and the further amplification unit on the basis of available headroom for amplification.