Perceived sound quality of reproductions with different frequency responses and sound levels

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 88; no. 3; pp. 1359 - 1366
• Main Authors: GABRIELSSON, A, HAGERMAN, B, BECH-KRISTENSEN, T, LUNDBERG, G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Woodbury, NY Acoustical Society of America 01-09-1990; American Institute of Physics
• Subjects: Adult; Audition; Auditory Perception; Biological and medical sciences; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Loudness Perception; Male; Music; Perception; Pitch Discrimination; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sound Spectrography; Speech Perception; Voice Quality; Human; Stimulus frequency; Hearing; Acoustic stimulus; Music; Quality; Female; Perception; Stimulus intensity; Voice; Judgment
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.399713

Three programs (female voice, jazz music, and pink noise) were reproduced using four different frequency responses and two different sound levels. Fourteen normal hearing subjects listened to the reproduction via earphones and judged the sound quality on seven perceptual scales (loudness, clarity, fullness, spaciousness, brightness, softness/gentleness, and nearness) and a fidelity scale. Significant differences among the reproductions appeared in all scales and could be attributed to the differences in frequency response or sound level or both. Interactions between the reproductions and the programs could be explained by the relations between the spectrum of the programs and the frequency responses used. The results for the noise program were similar to those for the jazz music program.