Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Quality Measurement of Perceptual Audio Codecs

  • Chapter
Book cover Introduction to Digital Audio Coding and Standards

Part of the book series: The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science ((SECS,volume 721))

  • 961 Accesses

Abstract

Audio coding involves balancing data rate and system complexity limitations against needs for high-quality audio. While audio quality is a fundamental concept in audio coding, it remains very difficult to describe it in objective terms. Traditional quality measurements such as the signal to noise ratio or the total block distortion provide simple, objective measures of audio quality but they ignore psychoacoustic effects that can lead to large differences in perceived quality. In contrast, perceptual objective measurement schemes, which rely upon specific models of hearing, are subject to the criticism that the predicted results do not correlate well with the perceived audio quality. While neither simple objective measures nor perceptual measures are considered fully satisfactory, audio coding has traditionally relied on formal listening tests to assess a system’s audio quality when a highly accurate assessment is needed. After all, human listeners are the ultimate judges of quality in any application.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. “Perceptual Audio Coders: What to Listen For”, AES 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  2. J. G. Beerends and J. A. Stemerdink, “A Perceptual Audio Quality Measure Based on a Psychoacoustic Sound Representation”, J. Audio Eng. Soc, Vol. 40, no. 12, pp. 963–978, December 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  3. L. L. Beranek, “Revised Criteria for Noise in Buildings”, Noise Control, Vol. 3, pp. 19–27, 1957.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. K. Brandenburg and T. Spörer, “NMR and Masking Rag: Evaluation of Quality Using Perceptual Criteria,” Proc. of AES 11th Intl. Conf., Portland, May 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  5. C. Colomes, M. Lever, J.B. Rault and Y.F. Dehery, “A Perceptual Model Applied to Audio Bit Rate Reduction,” presented at the 95th AES Convention, Preprint 3742, New York, October 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  6. M. Erne, “Perceptual Audio Coders: What to Listen For,” presented at the 111th AES Convention, New York, November 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  7. ISO 1996, “Acoustics — Description and Measurement of Environmental Noise — Part 1: Basic Quantities and Procedures”, Geneva 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  8. ISO 1996, “Acoustics — Description and Measurement of Environmental Noise — Part 2: Acquisition of Data Pertinent to Land Use”, Geneva 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  9. ISO 1996, “Acoustics — Description and Measurement of Environmental Noise — Part 3: Applications to Noise Limits”, Geneva 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  10. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 MPEG 91/010, “The MPEG/AUDIO Subjective Listening Test” Stockholm, April/May 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  11. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 MPEG 94/063, “Report on the MPEG/Audio Multichannel Formal Subjective Listening Tests”, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  12. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 MPEG 95/201, “Chairman’s Report on the Work of the Audio ad Hoc Group on Objective Measurements” Tokyo, July 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  13. ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N1420, “Overview of the Report on the Formal Subjective Listening Tests of MPEG-2 NBC Multichannel Audio Coding”, 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  14. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector 10/2–23-E, “Chairman Report of the Second Meeting of the Task Group 10/2”, Geneva 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  15. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector 10/51-E, “Low Bit Rate Multichannel Audio Coder Test Results”, Geneva 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  16. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector BS.1116 (rev. 1), “Methods for the Subjective Assessment of Small Impairments in Audio Systems Including Multichannel Sound Systems”, Geneva 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  17. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector BS.1284, “Methods for the Subjective Assessment of Sound Quality - General Requirements”, Geneva 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  18. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector BS.1387, “Method for the Objective Measurements of Perceived Audio Quality “, Geneva 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  19. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector BS.1534, “Method for the Subjective Assessment of Intermediate Quality Level Coding Systems - General requirements”, Geneva 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  20. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector BS.562–3, “Subjective Assessment of Sound Quality”, Geneva 1978–1982 1984–1990.

    Google Scholar 

  21. International Telecommunications Union, Radiocommunication Sector BT.710, “Subjective Assessment Methods for Image Quality in High- Definition Television”, Geneva 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  22. International Telecommunications Union, Telecommunication Sector P.800, “Methods for Subjective Determination of Transmission Quality”, Geneva 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  23. International Telecommunications Union, Telecommunication Sector P.810, “Modulated noise reference unit (MNRU)”, Geneva 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  24. International Telecommunications Union, Telecommunication Sector P.830, “Subjective Performance Assessment of Telephone Band and Wide Band Digital Codecs”, Geneva 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  25. International Telecommunications Union, Telecommunication Sector P.861, “Objective Quality Measurement of Telephone Band (300–3400 Hz) Speech Codecs”, Geneva 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  26. International Telecommunications Union, Telecommunication Sector P.862, “Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ), an Objective Method for End-to-End Speech Quality Assessment of Narrowband Telephone Networks and Speech Codecs”, Geneva 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  27. M. Karjalainen, “A New Auditory Model for the Evaluation of Sound Quality of Audio Systems”, Proc. of ICASSP, pp. 608–611, March 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Kosten and van Os, “Community Reaction Criteria for External Noises”, National Physical Laboratory Symposium No. 12, P. 377, London H. M.S.O. 1962.

    Google Scholar 

  29. M. R. Leek and C. S. Watson, “Learning to Detect Auditory Pattern Components”, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 76 no. 4, pp. 1037–1044, October 1984.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. B. Paillard, P. Mabilleu, S. Morissette and J. Soumagne, “PERCEVAL: Perceptual Evaluation of the Quality of Audio Signals,” J. Audio Eng. Soc, pp. 21–31, vol. 40, January/February 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  31. T. Ryden, “Using Listening Tests to Assess Audio Codecs”, in Collected Papers on Digital Audio Bit-Rate Reduction, N. Gilchrist and C. Gerwin (ed.)pp. 115–125, AES 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  32. M. R. Schroeder, B. S. Atal and J. L. Hall, “Optimizing Digital Speech Coders by Exploiting Masking Properties of the Human Ear”, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 66 no. 6, pp. 1647–1652, December 1979.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. G. A. Soulodre, T. Grusec, M. Lavoie, and L. Thibault, “Subjective Evaluation of State-of-the Art Two-Channel Audio Codecs”, J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 164–177, March 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  34. T. Thiede, W. Treurniet, R. Bitto, C. Schmidmer, T. Sporer, J. Beerends, C. Colomes, M. Keyhl, G. Stoll, K. Brandenburg and B. Feiten,, “PEAQ The ITU Standard for Objective Measurement of Perceived Audio Quality”, J. Audio Eng. Soc, Vol. 48, no. 1/2, pp. 3–29, January/February 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  35. W. C. Treurniet and G. A. Soulodre, “Evaluation of the ITU-R Objective Audio Quality Measurement Method”, J. Audio Eng. Soc, Vol. 48, no. 3, pp. 164–173, March 2000.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University, USA

    Marina Bosi

  2. The Brattle Group, USA

    Richard E. Goldberg

Authors
  1. Marina Bosi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Richard E. Goldberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bosi, M., Goldberg, R.E. (2003). Quality Measurement of Perceptual Audio Codecs. In: Introduction to Digital Audio Coding and Standards. The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, vol 721. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0327-9_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0327-9_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5022-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-0327-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation