"Phantom center refers to the way human ears detect the location of a sound; straight ahead, above, or behind the head. Since humans have one ear on each side of the head, sound in aforementioned locations creates an equal sensation in each ear. Thus, based only on hearing, the sound can be determined to be in one of said locations, as opposed as to the left, or to the right. In stereo mixing of sound a phantom center is often created, by the use of panning. Even though there is no center speaker, vocals could appear to come from precisely between the two speakers. In surround sound, vocals are often mapped to the center channel, eliminating the need to create a phantom center using the left and right channels."
From the patent:
"In one such embodiment in particular, the audio processing device may be an external removable device such as an iPod or iPhone, which has the necessary detection devices, antenna and microphone and is commanded by a software application, which may for example be downloadable. The processing operations described above and done by the microprocessor 5 to carry out the invention so as to adapt the audio signals played by the different loudspeakers are then defined by software instructions of the application."
The microphone inside an iPhone?
![[Image: B3OcwvnCMAEw1Nq.jpg:large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B3OcwvnCMAEw1Nq.jpg:large)
From the patent:
"In one such embodiment in particular, the audio processing device may be an external removable device such as an iPod or iPhone, which has the necessary detection devices, antenna and microphone and is commanded by a software application, which may for example be downloadable. The processing operations described above and done by the microprocessor 5 to carry out the invention so as to adapt the audio signals played by the different loudspeakers are then defined by software instructions of the application."
The microphone inside an iPhone?
