AES Berlin 2014
Paper Session P1
P1 - Perception—Part 1
Saturday, April 26, 10:00 — 12:30 (Room Paris)
Chair:
Richard King, McGill University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
P1-1 Consistency of High Frequency Preference Among Expert Listeners—Richard King, McGill University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Brett Leonard, McGill University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Stuart Bremner, McGill University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Grzegorz Sikora, Bang & Olufsen Deutschland GmbH - Munich, Germany; McGill University - Montreal, Canada
Consistency is one of the most fundamental skills of the recording professional. This is particularly important in tasks that involve the shaping of timbre. A study was designed that allows expert listeners to control a simple shelving equalizer that alters the high-frequency content of high-quality stereo program material over repeated trials. Fifteen trained subjects performed the test. Results indicate that there was an expectedly large range of preference for high frequency content. This was, however, also accompanied by a somewhat large variance. Unlike previous studies, consistency of high frequency preference was shown to be less related to the subjects' experience than other balancing tasks.
Convention Paper 9018 (Purchase now)
P1-2 Subjective Evaluation of High Resolution Recordings in PCM and DSD Audio Formats—Atsushi Marui, Tokyo University of the Arts - Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Japan; Toru Kamekawa, Tokyo University of the Arts - Adachi-ku, Tokyo, Japan; Kazuhiko Endo, TEAC Corporation - Tokyo, Japan; Erisa Sato, TEAC Corporation - Tokyo, Japan
High-resolution audio production and consumption are increasing attraction supported by releases of the relatively affordable audio recorders from multiple manufacturers and broader bandwidth of the Internet. However, differences in audio quality between high-resolution audio formats are still not well known, especially between the different audio formats available for the audio recorders. In order to evaluate the differences between subjective impression of the sounds recorded using high resolution audio formats, three audio formats—PCM (192 kHz/24 bits), DSD (2.8 MHz), and DSD (5.6 MHz)—recorded with multiple studio-quality audio recorders were evaluated in a double-blind A/B comparison listening test. Six sound programs evaluated by forty-six participants on eight attributes revealed statistically significant differences between PCM and DSD but not between the two sampling frequencies (2.8 MHz and 5.6 MHz) of DSD.
Convention Paper 9019 (Purchase now)
P1-3 The Acceptability of Speech with Interfering Radio Program Material—Khan Baykaner, University of Surrey - Guildford, Surrey, UK; Christopher Hummersone, University of Surrey - Guildford, Surrey, UK; Russell Mason, University of Surrey - Guildford, Surrey, UK; Søren Bech, Bang & Olufsen a/s - Struer, Denmark; Aalborg University - Aalborg, Denmark
A listening test was conducted to investigate the acceptability of audio-on-audio interference for radio programs featuring speech as the target. Twenty-one subjects, including naïve and expert listeners, were presented with 200 randomly assigned pairs of stimuli and asked to report, for each trial, whether the listening scenario was acceptable or unacceptable. Stimuli pairs were set to randomly selected SNRs ranging from 0 to 45 dB. Results showed no significant difference between subjects according to listening experience. A logistic regression to acceptability was carried out based on SNR. The model had accuracy R2 = 0.87, RMSE = 14%, and RMSE* = 7%. By accounting for the presence of background audio in the target program, 90% of the variance could be explained.
Convention Paper 9020 (Purchase now)
P1-4 The Effect of Dynamic Range Compression on Loudness and Quality Perception in Relation to Crest Factor—Mark Wendl, University of Huddersfield - Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK; Hyunkook Lee, University of Huddersfield - Huddersfield, UK
Two listening tests were carried out to find the changes in perceived loudness and perceived quality as the crest factors were changed for three genres (rock, electronic, and jazz) as a result of limiting, a type of dynamic range compression. The stimuli ranged from crest factors of 15 dBFS to 9 dBFS with a 1 dBFS increment. Loudness and quality had significant differences between the crest factors suggesting that a change in crest factor affects both. Correlations between loudness and quality were present for rock and jazz however not for electronic suggesting that genres can affect how we perceive quality.
Convention Paper 9021 (Purchase now)
P1-5 Hyper-Compression in Music Production: Listener Preferences on Dynamic Range Reduction—Robert W. Taylor, University of Newcastle - Callaghan, NSW, Australia; University of Sydney - Sydney, NSW, Australia; William L. Martens, University of Sydney - Sydney, NSW, Australia
Achieving “loud” recordings as a result of hyper-compression is a prevailing expectation within the creative system of music production, sustaining a myth that has been developing since the mid-twentieth century as a consequence of the “louder is better” paradigm. The study reported here investigated whether the amounts of hyper-compression typical of current audio practice produce results that listeners prefer. The experimental approach taken in this study was to conduct a subjective preference test requiring listeners to make a forced choice between seven levels of compression for each of five musical programs that differed in musical genre. The presented seven versions of each musical program were carefully matched in loudness as the versions were varied in compression level, and so differences in loudness per se cannot account for the differences in preferences choices observed between musical programs. In addition, it was found that subject factors such as age group, and speculatively the amount of exposure to different genres, were of considerable influence on listener preferences.
Convention Paper 9022 (Purchase now)
