Perceptual sound quality evaluation

The perception of Sound Quality is not only based on the pure physical signal, it also depends on other sensorial modalities and even non-sensorial factors. Sound Quality evaluation thus becomes a complex, difficult and interdisciplinary task, and methods to evaluate Sound Quality cannot only restrict themselves to the acoustical signal. Other modalities and the specific situation and background of the subject have to be considered. Anyhow, for the application in the industrial environment the corresponding needs and restrictions have to be considered: methods have to be time-efficient, render results with a sufficient accuracy, and give direct clues on how to improve products. The process of Sound Quality Evaluation is put into the above mentioned context in this paper. For a long period of time Sound Engineering basically dealt with the reduction of the overall sound level that is emitted by a product. But, within the last decade the focus started to switch more and more towards the aspect of the quality of the resulting sound. This development of Sound Engineering results in the fact that sound engineers have to cope with completel