Objective way of measuring audio quality?

2004-09-14 19:06:55

Hi,

I want to measure the quality of audio codecs, but I want an absolute objective way to do that (No listening tests).
Some (or everybody) of you will say that the most important thing is to measure how the file really SOUNDS, but I am curious about objective measurement.
Is there any tool or method which is able to do that?

Thanks in advance

Objective way of measuring audio quality?

Reply #1 – 2004-09-14 19:56:30

Hi.  Please check out the FAQ, as it addresses some of this.

So-called "objective" methods of measuring sound quality are basically useless with respect to the way in which most of the lossy codecs discussed here work.

There have been some tools which attempt to objectively measure sound quality via some sort of perceptual model, but most of them have proven to give inaccurate results in many cases.

Objective way of measuring audio quality?

Reply #2 – 2004-09-15 05:11:55

a properly conducted listening test (with enough participants) is completely objective.

what better human perceptual model is there but actual human hearing?

although, i concede that when there are clear differences to be heard, judging what is a better "sound" can be a difficult task.  but aesthetics cannot be objective by definition, so it's nothing to worry about.

imagine a scientific test to determine if a piece of art is "good" or not... critics would go out of business.

Objective way of measuring audio quality?

Reply #3 – 2004-10-03 20:01:19

Easy to do, one just would need ABC/HR for images with 1-1000 scale.
Of course, critics are most probably biased, so you'd need to throw in some reproductions to fool them.