Patent Application
20050254669
The present invention relates in general to remotely controlling sound reproduction and more particularly concerns apparatus and techniques for remotely controlling a sound system in an enclosure that includes at least a radio and may also include a CD player with the enclosure preferably free of all manual selectors and at least free of volume control selectors, tuning selectors, CD play/pause selectors and CD track selectors.
For background, reference is made to the commercially available Bose® Wave® radio/CD incorporated herein by reference.
According to the invention, a sound reproducer has a base enclosure that includes left and right loudspeakers and a radio. The base enclosure is free of at least manually selectable controls for volume and station tuning. An embodiment also having a CD player in the base enclosure is also free of at least manually selectable play/pause controls, stop/eject controls, and track controls. There is a remote controller that has all manually selectable controls for controlling the reproduced sound from the base enclosure, typically an infrared remote control. Preferably, the base enclosure is free of all manually selectable controls.
Numerous other features, objects and advantages will be come apparent from the following detailed description when read in connection with the accompanying drawing in which:
With reference now to the drawing and more particularly
Referring to
Referring to
The tune/track switches skip to the next/previous stored radio frequency or skip to the next/previous CD track. The play/pause switch plays a CD or pauses a playing CD. The stop/eject switch stops a playing CD when pressed once and ejects a stopped CD when pressed again. The presets store a radio station for quick recall when pressed and held and recall a stored radio location when pressed after storage. The mute switch silences audio when pressed and restores audio when pressed again. The FM/AM switch turns the radio on and switches between FM and AM when pressed again. The CD switch turns the CD player on. The AUX switch causes audio from an external source to be heard when pressed. The On/Off switch turns the power on or off and stops a sounding alarm. The sleep switch snoozes a sounding alarm and sets the unit to shut off automatically after a predetermined number of minutes.
The invention is embodied in the Bose® Wave® Radio/CD II commercially available shortly after the filing date of this application.
An important object of the invention is to motivate users of the radio/CD to listen to the sound reproducing system at a distance from the base enclosure where it is believed the perceived sound quality is better than when the user is closely adjacent to the base enclosure.
It is evident that those skilled in the art may now make numerous uses and modifications of and departures from the apparatus and techniques herein disclosed without departing from the inventive concepts. Consequently, the invention is to be construed as embracing each and every novel feature and novel combination of features present or possessed by the apparatus and technique herein disclosed and limited solely by the spirit and scope of the appended claims.
