Active noise control using bass management

1. An active noise cancellation system for reducing, at a listening position, the power of a noise signal being radiated from a noise source to the listening position, the system comprising:

an adaptive filter that receives a reference signal representing the noise signal, and provides a compensation signal;

a bass management unit comprising an all-pass filter that receives the compensation signal and applies a variable phase shift as a function of frequency to the compensation signal to provide a phase shifted compensation signal;

a first acoustic radiator that receives the phase shifted compensation signal and radiates audio indicative thereof to the listening position; and

a second acoustic radiator that receives the compensation signal and radiates audio indicative thereof to the listening position;

where transfer function characteristics from the input of the bass management system to the listening position approximately matches a desired transfer function.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising a microphone arranged at the listening position, and provides an error signal.

3. The system of claim 2 , further comprising a sensor configured to provide the reference signal which represents the noise signal.

4. The system of claim 2 , further comprising means responsive to the error signal and the compensation signal, for calculating the reference signal.

5. The system of claim 2 , further comprising an adaptation unit that calculates filter coefficients for the adaptive filter in response to the error signal and the reference signal.

6. The system of claim 5 , further comprising a filter unit receiving the reference signal and providing a filtered reference signal to the adaptation unit, the transfer behavior being characterized by a transfer function being an a-priori estimation of the transfer characteristic from the input of the bass management system to the listening position.

7. The system of claim 6 , where the adaptation unit uses a Filtered-x LMS algorithm or a Filtered-e LMS algorithm for calculating the filter coefficients.

8. The system of claim 7 , where the sensor is a non-acoustic sensor.

9. The system of claim 1 , where the bass management system comprises a channel for each acoustic actuator that provides the compensation signal to the respective acoustic actuator, where at least each but one channel comprises a phase filter.

10. A method for reducing, at a listening position, the power of a noise signal being radiated from a noise source to the listening position, the method comprising:

providing a reference signal representing the noise signal;

adaptive filtering the reference signal to provide a compensation signal;

supplying the compensation signal to at least two acoustic transducers via a bass management system for radiating the compensation signal or filtered versions thereof,

where the bass management system distributes the compensation signal to the acoustic transducers and filters the compensation signal for at least a first acoustic transducer by an all-pass filter that applies a variable phase shift as a function of frequency such that the transfer characteristic from the input of the bass management system to the listening position approximately matches a desired transfer function.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising measuring an error signal at the listening position.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising measuring the reference signal representing the noise signal by a sensor that is configured to provide the reference signal representing the noise signal.

13. The method of claim 11 , further comprising means for calculating the reference signal from the error signal and the compensation signal.

14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising calculating filter coefficients for the adaptive filter dependent from the error and from the reference signal.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising filtering the reference signal with a given transfer function before calculating therefrom the filter coefficients for the adaptive filter, the transfer function being an a-priori estimation of the transfer characteristic from the input of the bass management system to the listening position.

16. The method of claim 15 , where the filter coefficients for the adaptive filter are calculated using a Filtered-x LMS algorithm or a Filtered-e LMS algorithm.

17. The system of claim 1 , wherein the all-pass filter comprises a FIR filter.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the all-pass filter comprises a FIR filter.