Electroacoustic distortions: Multidimensional analysis of hearing aid transduced speech and music

The detrimental effects of electroacoustic distortions on quality judgement of speech and music was investigated using a posteriori techniques of multidimensional scaling. Evaluative data consisted of preference and similarity judgments from pairwise presentation of 12 hearing aids to normal listeners. Dimensions derived from proximity matrices were interpreted as electroacoustic distortions. The weighting of these distortions were analyzed and contrasted to correlational analysis. Interactions were present between the speech and music judgments. Frequency response and bandwidth were evidenced as dimensions influencing both speech and music with third harmonic distortion and internal noise being specific to speech, while transient distortions and phase distortion affected listener preception of music.