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Machine Learning: Predicting Audio Quality for high SPL Smartphone Recordings

Authors: Guelen, Philippe; Zhao, Dan; Terra Pizutti Dos Santos, Pietro; Drouadene, Arthur; Bacle, Justin

AES Convention 155 · Paper 130 · October 2023

Abstract

In this paper, we explore a machine learning approach to evaluate audio quality for high sound pressure level (SPL) smartphone recordings. Our study is based on perceptual evaluations conducted by technical experts on eight audio sub-attributes (tonal balance, treble, midrange, bass, dynamics, temporal artifacts, spectral artifacts, and other artifacts) of audio quality for 121 smartphones released from 2019 to 2021. To address this task, we propose a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model, which proves to be a simple yet effective choice. We employ a pre-augmentation technique to enhance the training dataset size, creating a comprehensive dataset comprising recording spectrograms and corresponding perceptual evaluation scores. Our findings indicate that while the CNN model has certain limitations, it demonstrates promising capabilities in predicting evaluation scores, particularly in aspects of tonal balance, bass, and spectral artifact assessment.

Details

Published in
AES Convention 155
AES Convention
155
Paper number
130
Publication date
October 6, 2023
Session subject
Perception
Affiliation
DXOMARK; DXOMARK; DXOMARK; DXOMARK (See document for exact affiliation information.)
Type
Express Paper