The Communication Acoustics Simulator - A room that packs a punch!

Whether office room or bathtub acoustics, whether cathedral, train station hall or concert hall - with the Communication Acoustics Simulator (KAS) in the House of Hearing, the sound impression of almost any room can be recreated. The worldwide unique combination of microphones, loudspeakers and computer capacities has all the features that make the heart of the music lover - as well as the room acoustician - beat faster. With the KAS, influences of room acoustics on different communication situations can be investigated. In experiments on "human-machine interaction", for example, the usability of new hearing aids, speech recognizers and cell phones is tested in extremely different acoustic situations. These unique possibilities are also attracting widespread interest from manufacturers of audiological products. Interested members of the public can experience the room in the context of visitor groups and concerts organized by the Förderverein Haus des Hörens.

At first glance, the presentation room of the KAS seems like an ordinary seminar room. But in it, acoustic parameters such as reverberation and experienced acoustic room size can be varied over a wide range. Virtual sources can also be fed in - for example, the soundscape of a train station with trains arriving and departing.
Speakers' voices, music and any other type of sound generated in the room are picked up by the numerous microphones in the ceiling and fed into the heart of the KAS, the electroacoustic control system. It can be used to selectively modify these acoustic signals or to add other virtual sources, which are then fed back into the presentation room via the loudspeakers in the walls and ceiling. This creates the unique impression of a virtual room. The KAS is completed by a separate control room with digital video and audio monitoring equipment.