Listening by Convolution

It is a simple process to play some program material over aloud speaker and make some recordings at listener seats of interest. But what program material? Speech?Music?What kind of music? Male voice? Female voice?

The possible combinations approach infinity. Rather than make lots of recordings, we can just collect the impulse response at the seat of interest. It can later be convolved with an echoic program material to reveal what that material would sound like if it were recorded using the same acoustic source, microphone and microphone placement.

The convolution process allows us to listen to the data. Convolution is usually performed by a specialized software program that reads the WAV file format. The ability to quickly perform convolutions and listen to data is one of the major advancements afforded by modern analysis techniques.

Convolution allows listening to be part of the measurement process.