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Adaptive Sound Technology
Going from sweet spots to sweet areas
Creating the perfect listening conditions is never easy. Either we don’t place our loudspeakers perfectly in a room or we are not sitting in the perfect spot when listening to music.
This isn’t a problem any longer. Adaptive Sound Technology, or AST, is an innovative Bang & Olufsen solution that negates these problems by expanding sweet spots into sweet areas.
Sweet spots? Traditionally, loudspeaker systems have a very limited sweet spot – the area where sound quality is optimum. The location of the sweet spot depends on the placement of the loudspeaker relative to the listener. Unfortunately, sweet spots are not very large and are fixed to only one location in a room.
AST maximises the location of optimum sound quality in a room, turning those ever so small sweet spots into more spacious “sweet areas,” maximising the sound experience no matter where you are in the room.
Interior decoration often gets in the way of placing loudspeakers in the acoustically optimal locations in the room; therefore the sweet spot is not always where you want it to be. Because AST knows the exact location of your loudspeakers, its complex algorithm is able to compensate for loudspeaker placement. This means you get the best possible sound experience without having to turn your living room into a sound studio.
To better understand how AST works, it is important to understand how loudspeaker placement affects the sound quality of a stereo recording. To correctly hear all spatial aspects of the stereo recording you need two identical front loudspeakers placed at identical distances from the listener at +/-30 degrees from centre. If either the loudspeakers or the listener are improperly positioned, the quality of the sound will suffer. This is true regardless of the quality or type of loudspeaker or the qualities of the room.
Able to handle as many as seven loudspeakers at a time, AST improves the experience of your surround sound system by using Digital Signal Processing to create an optimal sound experience that moves with you around the room.
Whether you are sitting on your sofa, your favourite chair or at the dining room table, AST provides optimal and uniform sound experience. It gives you the freedom to place loudspeakers where you want and where they fit the layout of the room.
AST is just one of the innovative acoustic solutions from Bang & Olufsen intended to improve listening comfort. AST joins Acoustic Lens Technology and the Adaptive Bass Control in Bang & Olufsen’s effort to give you the best listening experience.