Mobile telephone and cartilage-conduction vibration source device
A mobile telephone in accordance with some implementations has a mobile telephone upper edge unit including a right-ear cartilage conduction unit, a left-ear cartilage conduction unit, and a linking unit linking the right-ear cartilage conduction unit and the left-ear cartilage conduction unit, the units being exposed at the mobile telephone surface; and a cartilage-conduction vibration source for transmitting vibration to the mobile telephone upper edge unit. The mobile telephone can include: a sound source unit for outputting a sound signal; an acoustic processing unit for applying correction to the sound signal output from the sound source unit, doing so on the basis of the vibration frequency characteristics of ear cartilage; a cartilage-conduction vibration source vibrated by the sound signal corrected by the acoustic processing unit; and a detection unit for detecting pressing of the mobile telephone against the ear cartilage. When the output of the detection unit is at or above a predetermined level, the acoustic processing unit performs correction to boost the gain at the high end within a frequency band in which the cartilage-conduction vibration source is vibrated to a level higher than the gain when the external auditory meatus is in an unoccluded state.
1. A mobile telephone comprising:
a sound source unit for outputting a sound signal;
an acoustic processing unit for applying correction to the sound signal output from the sound source unit, doing so on a basis of vibration frequency characteristics of ear cartilage;
a cartilage-conduction vibration source vibrated by the sound signal corrected by the acoustic processing unit; and
a detection unit for detecting pressing of the mobile telephone against the ear cartilage,
wherein, when an output of the detection unit is at or above a predetermined level, the acoustic processing unit performs correction to boost a gain at a high end within a frequency band in which the cartilage-conduction vibration source is vibrated to a level higher than a gain when an external auditory meatus is in an unoccluded state.
2. The mobile telephone according to claim 1 , wherein
the acoustic processing unit determines, on a basis of a moving average output of a detection unit, whether or not to perform the correction to boost the gain at the high end within the frequency band in which the cartilage-conduction vibration source is vibrated to the level higher than the gain when the external auditory meatus is in the unoccluded state.
3. The mobile telephone according to claim 1 , wherein, on a basis of the output of the detection unit,
when the external auditory meatus is found to be obstructed, the acoustic processing unit rapidly performs the correction to boost the gain at the high end within the frequency band in which the cartilage-conduction vibration source is vibrated to the level higher than the gain when the external auditory meatus is in the unoccluded state, and
when the external auditory meatus is found to be unoccluded, the acoustic processing unit halts the correction to boost the gain on observing the output of the detection unit change a plurality of times.
4. A mobile telephone comprising:
a sound source unit for outputting a sound signal;
an acoustic processing unit for applying correction to the sound signal output from the sound source unit, doing so on a basis of vibration frequency characteristics of ear cartilage;
a cartilage-conduction vibration source vibrated by the sound signal corrected by the acoustic processing unit; and
a detection unit for detecting environment noise,
wherein, when an output of the detection unit is at or above a predetermined level, the acoustic processing unit performs correction to boost a gain at a high end within a frequency band in which the cartilage-conduction vibration source is vibrated to a level higher than a gain when an external auditory meatus is in an unoccluded state.
5. A cartilage-conduction vibration source device comprising:
a sound signal input unit for inputting a sound signal;
an acoustic processing unit for variable processing, for purposes of cartilage conduction, of a sound signal input from the sound signal input unit; and
an amplifier unit for outputting a processed signal processed by the acoustic processing unit to a cartilage-conduction vibration source as a drive signal,
wherein the acoustic processing unit modifies acoustic processing in such a way that the drive signal output to the cartilage-conduction vibration source differs in frequency characteristics according to whether a sound has arrived via or not via a communication unit.
6. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 5 , wherein the acoustic processing unit modifies acoustic processing in such a way that the drive signal output to the cartilage-conduction vibration source differs in frequency characteristics for a normal individual versus for a person with conductive hearing loss.
7. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 5 , wherein the acoustic processing unit modifies acoustic processing in such a way that the drive signal output to the cartilage-conduction vibration source differs in frequency characteristics in a case where an external auditory meatus entrance is unoccluded versus in a case where the entrance is occluded.
8. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 5 , wherein the acoustic processing unit has a plurality of acoustic processing units, and modifies contribution of the plurality of acoustic processing units to the drive signal.
9. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 8 , further comprising:
a control signal input unit for inputting a control signal for purposes of variable processing in the acoustic processing unit;
wherein the acoustic processing unit modifies the contribution of the plurality of acoustic processing units to the drive signal based on the control signal.
10. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 8 , wherein the plurality of acoustic processing units have
a first acoustic processing unit for carrying out acoustic processing on a basis of frequency characteristics of cartilage bone conduction from the cartilage-conduction vibration source and
a second acoustic processing unit for carrying out acoustic processing on a basis of frequency characteristics of direct air conduction from the cartilage-conduction vibration source.
11. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 10 , wherein the contribution of the second acoustic processing unit to the drive signal is increased for a sound that has arrived via a communication unit compared with for a sound that has arrived not via a communication unit.
12. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 10 , wherein the contribution of the second acoustic processing unit to the drive signal is stopped when an external auditory meatus entrance is occluded.
13. A mobile telephone comprising the cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 12 .
14. The mobile telephone according to claim 13 , wherein the mobile telephone is configured as a mobile device having a combination large-screen display unit/touch screen.
15. The mobile telephone according to claim 13 , wherein the sound output unit is a cartilage conduction unit.
16. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 5 , wherein the amplifier unit has a gain adjustment unit for adjusting a gain according to an input signal level such that an output level is brought to a predetermined drive signal level for the cartilage-conduction vibration source.
17. The cartilage-conduction vibration source device according to claim 16 , wherein the cartilage-conduction vibration source is a piezoelectric bimorph element.