A new auditory model for the evaluation of sound quality of audio systems

A new computational model of auditory spectrum analysis is presented and its validity in sound quality measurements is shown. The model is based on the most important features of peripheral hearing in time and frequency known from the psychoacoustic theory. The methodology of sound quality measurement is based on the use of real signals (e.g. speech) as test signals and auditory spectrum distance as a measure of sound quality degradation. This paper describes the new auditory model and the results of testing its validity. A good correlation between subjective and our objective measures of distortion is shown. Auditory spectrum distance far out-performs the traditional distortion measures in this sense. Some limitations and further ideas concerning the model are also discussed.