Shift of the Acoustic Center of a Closed-Box Loudspeaker in a Linear Array: Investigation Using the Beamforming Technique

The center of the spherical waves radiated from a loudspeaker is defined as its acoustic center. This study aims to investigate how the acoustic center of a closed-box loudspeaker is shifted when the loudspeaker is placed in a linear array. That is, the acoustic center of the loudspeaker is estimated when the loudspeaker is placed alone and then the loudspeaker is placed in a linear array composed of two or three identical loudspeakers. The acoustic center of each loudspeaker in the linear arrays is estimated with the other loudspeakers turned off and compared with that in the single loudspeaker case. In order to estimate the acoustic center based on the wave fronts, a method is proposed that measures sound pressure around the loudspeaker with an array of microphones and uses the beamforming method for the reduction of the effect of the experimental errors. Experimental results show that the acoustic center is shifted differently depending on the relative position of the loudspeaker in the array. This implies that the performance of sound field control with a linear array of loudspeakers can be improved by taking the shift of the acoustic center into account.