Loudness measurements are often necessary in psychoacoustic research and legally required in broadcasting. However, existing loudness models have not been widely tested with new multichannel audio systems. A trained listening panel used the method of adjustment to balance the loudnesses of eight reproduction methods: low-quality mono, mono, stereo, 5-channel, 9-channel, 22-channel, ambisonic cuboid, and headphones.
Seven programme items were used, including music, sport, and a film soundtrack. The results were used to test loudness models including simple energy-based metrics, variants of ITU-R BS.1770, and complex psychoacoustically motivated models. The mean differences between the perceptual results and model predictions were statistically insignificant for all but the simplest model. However, some weaknesses in the model predictions were highlighted.
This paper was originally presented at the 139th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society (AES), October 2015, New York, NY, USA, and is .
The paper was written by Jon Francombe, Tim Brookes and Russell Mason of the Institute of Sound Recording, University of Surrey and Frank Melchior of Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Research & Development. Jon Francombe subsequently joined Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ R&D.
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