Patent ID: 8199925

Claim:
An audio signal supply apparatus for an array speaker unit comprising a plurality of loudspeakers, the audio signal supply apparatus comprising: a branching unit that branches a same input audio signal into a plurality of signals; a directivity control unit that generates first directivity control information and second directivity control information; a first delay unit that provides a first delay for one of the branched audio signals and supplies first delay processed signals to all of the loudspeakers of the array speaker unit in accordance with the first directivity control information; a second delay unit that provides a second delay for another of the branched audio signals and supplies second delay processed signals to all of the loudspeakers of the array speaker unit in accordance with the second directivity control information; a weighting unit that weights each of the delay processed audio signals from the first and second delay units to be supplied to the loudspeakers in accordance with a provided gain coefficient for each of the delay processed audio signals; and an adding unit that adds the first and second delay processed signals that have been weighted by the weighting unit before being applied to all of the respective loudspeakers, wherein the one branched audio signal provides a first sound output from the array speaker unit and the another branched audio signal provides a second sound output from the array speaker unit, wherein a directional characteristic of the array speaker unit for the first sound output differs from the directional characteristic of the array speaker unit for the second sound output, and wherein the first sound output and the second sound output are concurrently output.