Comparison of perceived sound qualities of five clarinets of different makes

In this paper, the perceived sound qualities of five clarinets from different manufacturers are compared. An attempt is made to relate differences in the timbres of the instruments to variations in their designs. A series of psychoacoustical listening tests is discussed. The listening tests are designed to investigate perceived differences between single notes played on the five clarinets. Recordings of four note pitches (E3, F3, F4 and B4 clarinet transposed notes), played at two different dynamic levels, are used to populate the tests. Each listening test is either made up of notes produced by a human player or notes produced by an artificial mouth. In the tests, participants are presented with 60 pairs of sounds and asked to rate the overall difference between the notes of each pair and also to indicate which has the brighter timbre. A selection of results from the listening tests is presented and analysed via comparison with geometrical, spectral centroid and input impedance measurements