Loudspeaker specifications traditionally describe their physical characteristics rather than the perceptual properties of the sound reproduction. This study explores three metrics for predicting the perceived characteristics of loudspeakers’ sound in a stereo setup evaluated in a standardized listening room. Perceptual evaluations of eleven loudspeakers were conducted on the basis of six selected sensory descriptors chosen by trained listeners during consensus meetings. Four of these descriptors were found suitable for modeling metrics that predicted Bass depth, Punch, Brilliance, and Dark-Bright respectively; Bass depth and Punch were however combined because of a high correlation between them. The input for the metrics was recordings made using a head-and-torso simulator and processed using a loudness model. The prediction models were trained on a subset of seven sets of loudspeakers and validated on four others. The range of correlation coefficients between perceptual evaluations and outputs of the metrics were r = 0.85-0.96.
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https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2017.0006
