Methodology for Sound Quality Metric Development

2025-01-0070

05/05/2025

Features
Event
Authors Abstract
Content
While many individual technical descriptors exist to quantify and describe different kinds of acoustic phenomena, they each only describe the technical aspects of a sound itself without considering any additional non-acoustic context. Human perception, however, is greatly informed by this context. For example, humans have different expectations for the sound of an electric razor than they do for an internal combustion engine, despite both objects being able to be described by sound pressure level or a measure of roughness. No single technical descriptor alone works in all contexts as a gold standard which objectively determines whether a sound is “good.” Jury tests, however, are a great aid towards gaining a measure of this context. When seeking to effectively quantify the sound quality of a device, it is necessary to combine the perceptive information from the results of a jury test alongside one or more technical descriptors in order to provide a meaningful method of evaluation. The combination of perceptive data and technical descriptors ultimately forms a calculation rule, called a metric, which typically provides a single value that accurately characterizes how a sound will be perceived by a human. This paper describes a methodology for creating metrics by first defining a context in which to analyze a set of sounds. Appropriate methods of data acquisition are discussed, alongside jury test creation and administration. Finally, statistical methods are described for use in jury test postprocessing and the selection of technical descriptors for use in the development of a metric.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2025-01-0070
Pages
5
Citation
Thiede, S., "Methodology for Sound Quality Metric Development," SAE Technical Paper 2025-01-0070, 2025, https://doi.org/10.4271/2025-01-0070.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
May 05
Product Code
2025-01-0070
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English