Patent Document ID: 9736264
Application ID: 15008704
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A system, comprising: a housing configured to interface with a user's ear; an input subsystem disposed within the housing and comprising a microphone, a preamplifier, and an analog to digital converter coupled to one another, wherein the analog to digital converter is configured to convert ambient sound captured by the microphone and amplified by the preamplifier into digitized ambient sound; a network interface configured to receive one or more processing parameter sets from a remote server; a memory configured to store the one or more processing parameter sets received using the network interface, wherein a processing parameter set of the one or more processing parameter sets defines a type and degree of one or more processes to be performed on the digitized ambient sound; a processor in communication with the input subsystem, the network interface, and the memory, the processor configured to: extract feature data from the digitized ambient sound, wherein the feature data includes one or more numerical characterizations of the digitized ambient sound; instruct the network interface to transmit the feature data and metadata to the remote server, wherein the metadata includes an identifier of the processing parameter set used to process the digitized ambient sound, wherein the remote server is configured to determine a consensus processing parameter set associated with the feature data and the metadata at least in part by: grouping the feature data and the metadata received from the network interface with additional feature data and associated metadata received from other personal audio systems; and determining the consensus processing parameter set for the group based upon processing parameters which are manually selected by a plurality of other users of the other personal audio systems; request one or more appropriate processing parameter sets from the remote server; receive one or more processing parameter sets, selected by the remote server based upon the feature data and the metadata, wherein the one or more processing parameter sets selected by the remote server includes the consensus processing parameter set; and initiate processing of the digitized ambient sound based upon the one or more processing parameter sets selected and received from the remote server to generate digitized processed sound; and an output subsystem disposed within the housing and in communication with the processor, the output subsystem comprising a digital to analog converter, an amplifier and a speaker coupled to one another, wherein the digital to analog converter is configured to convert the digitized processed sound into processed output sound outputted by the speaker for the user's ear.