How to use sound quality for evaluation
How to use sound quality for evaluation
(OP)
How can sound quality be used to solve a noise issue vs using sound power/sound pressure? Situation where us vs "other guy", our product has a better sound pressure spectrum, but theirs "sounds" better. We look at the narrow band spectrum to look for the exact frequencies, and across the board ours looks better.
The other guys product has a low electrical hum, while ours has a slightly higher pitch hum with a slight flutter.
Any pointers would be great.
The other guys product has a low electrical hum, while ours has a slightly higher pitch hum with a slight flutter.
Any pointers would be great.






RE: How to use sound quality for evaluation
RE: How to use sound quality for evaluation
One rule for industrial noise is that in an octave band measurement no band can be more than X db higher than neighboring adjacent bands. The intent it to prevent pure tones from being very loud at all, since tones are annoying at even modest levels, like a mosquito in a bedroom, or a danged stack blower at 2 AM.
RE: How to use sound quality for evaluation
RE: How to use sound quality for evaluation
RE: How to use sound quality for evaluation
It's no just "measurement" but "assessment" or "evaluation" of sound quality.
You can also try to use some software to calcualte metrics like loudness, sharpness,roughness etc, and trying to find out if any of those make sense in determining the difference between "better sound" and "worse sound".
RE: How to use sound quality for evaluation
Sound perception is psycho-acoustic, and involves WSP (wetware signal processing - human). So you need to take into account the response of the receiver (ear) and WSP.
From pugap's description, which is rather vague, I gather this:
pitch:
pugap's DUT has hum that is higher in pitch than the other guy's
amplitude:
pugap's DUT has lower amplitude in whatever band's s/he measured
modulation:
pugaps's DUT modulates the noise, but the other guy's doesn't
Fletcher-Munson curves (recently renamed by some upstarts that corrected them - don't remember who) specify the human frequency response. If the other guy puts the noise in the low-sensitivity area of the human response then the other guy's DUT can sound quieter even with more acoustic energy than pugap's DUT.
Humans are very sensitive to modulation. So modulated noise is more noticeable than steady-state.
Harmonics also make a difference. Humans can pull harmonics of a fundamental out of the noise floor. So if pugap's DUT's hum has more harmonics it will be more audible even if you can't see all those harmonics on the spectrum analyzer.
e2zn