Forget sound pressure level: Think sound quality.

Sound quality is an important aspect of product design and engineering. The sound quality of a product built on psychoacoustics principles can stand out of competition and secure superior margins.

The acoustic certification tests generally measure the intensity of the sound and fail to address the pleasantness of the sound. So, how do you measure the product’s sound quality? Is there a professional norm to rate and evaluate product’s sound quality?

Register to this webinar and learn how consumer goods companies evaluate product’s sound quality unbiased and objectively. You will learn:

• Engineering innovation in the domain of product’s sound quality
• Why sound pressure level is not always the right tool for evaluating sound quality
• To use sound quality metrices such as loudness, sharpness, tonality or modulation in order to understand and quantify sounds

Sound pressure level

Given the same sound pressure levels, microphone recordings can be very different than the levels perceived by the human ear. The challenge with sound quality analysis is that perceived sound quality and pressure level are strongly related to the human hearing mechanism.

The mechanism of the human auditory system differs from one of the most common acoustic test equipment, the microphone. A microphone can measure the sound pressure levels (SPL), but will not consider the subjective preference of a human brain. This can often result in acceptable sound pressure level values, but a poorly designed product from customer’s auditory perspective.

Sound quality measurement and metrics for industries

A typical sound quality process starts with binaural acoustic measurements. The environment and conditions in which you measure should be as realistic as possible. The collected data is analyzed by means of objective and subjective evaluations.

Watch this webinar to objectively rank and rate sounds, engineers use sound quality metrics. These metrics are often based on the psychoacoustic theory, which takes the mechanisms of the human auditory system into account. A parallel subjective evaluation, such as a jury testing procedure, helps to further link preferences for certain sounds with design variants or benchmarked solutions.

Objective analysis using sound quality metrics

The sound quality metrics based on psychoacoustics principle are a powerful and important tool that can be used to design good sounding products. Psychoacoustics is a branch of psychophysics related to the study of sound perception and audiology. There are many algorithms, some of them standardized, that attempt to describe and represent the reaction of the human auditory system towards different sounds. Register to this webinar and learn how psychoacoustics are employed in product engineering to access the sound quality metrics.

Words such as whine, squeak or rattle are rarely associated with a robust and good quality item, regardless if it’s a hairdryer or car. This webinar will cover metrics such as loudness, tonality, modulation, sharpness, fluctuation strength or articulation index.