Another View of Distortion Perception

Vanderkooy J, Krauel KB. Another View of Distortion Perception. In: AES Convention 133. Audio Engineering Society; 2012. Paper 76. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=16631

@inproceedings{Vanderkooy2012_16631,
  author = {Vanderkooy, John and Krauel, Kevin B.},
  title = {{Another View of Distortion Perception}},
  booktitle = {AES Convention 133},
  note = {Paper 76},
  year = {2012},
  month = oct,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=16631}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Another View of Distortion Perception
AU  - Vanderkooy, John
AU  - Krauel, Kevin B.
T2  - AES Convention 133
M1  - Paper 76
PY  - 2012
DA  - 2012/10/06
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=16631
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Perception of distortion is difficult to determine since it relies critically on signal level. We study a distortion characteristic possessing a relative distortion independent of signal level—a simple change in slope between positive and negative signal excursion. A mathematical analysis is presented, showing the resulting distortion to be mainly even harmonic but with some rectification effects, which need consideration. Various signals are evaluated by informal A/B listening tests, including pure tones and music. Judiciously-chosen signals have distortions that are detectable only if they are above 1%, in keeping with psychoacoustic masking data, while real music signals are considerably more tolerant of distortion up to levels of 5% or more! This implies that, except for crossover distortion, present-day electronic systems are all sufficiently linear.
ER  -