Training | Resources

arrow_back_ios

Main Menu

arrow_back_ios

Main Menu

See All Acoustic End-of-Line Test Systems See All DAQ and instruments See All Electroacoustics See All Software See All Transducers See All Vibration Testing Equipment See All Academy See All Resource Center See All Applications See All Industries See All Insights See All Services See All Support See All Our Business See All Our History See All Our Sustainability Commitment See All Global Presence
arrow_back_ios

Main Menu

See All Actuators See All Combustion Engines See All Durability See All eDrive See All Production Testing Sensors See All Transmission & Gearboxes See All Turbo Charger See All DAQ Systems See All High Precision and Calibration Systems See All Industrial electronics See All Power Analyser See All S&V Hand-held devices See All S&V Signal conditioner See All Test Solutions See All DAQ Software See All Drivers & API See All nCode - Durability and Fatigue Analysis See All ReliaSoft - Reliability Analysis and Management See All Test Data Management See All Utility See All Vibration Control See All Acoustic See All Current / voltage See All Displacement See All Load Cells See All Pressure See All Strain Gauges See All Torque See All Vibration See All LDS Shaker Systems See All Power Amplifiers See All Vibration Controllers See All Accessories for Vibration Testing Equipment See All Training Courses See All Whitepapers See All Acoustics See All Asset & Process Monitoring See All Custom Sensors See All Data Acquisition & Analysis See All Durability & Fatigue See All Electric Power Testing See All NVH See All Reliability See All Smart Sensors See All Vibration See All Weighing See All Automotive & Ground Transportation See All Calibration See All Installation, Maintenance & Repair See All Support Brüel & Kjær See All Release Notes See All Compliance See All Our People
arrow_back_ios

Main Menu

See All CANHEAD See All GenHS See All LAN-XI See All MGCplus See All Optical Interrogators See All QuantumX See All SomatXR See All Accessories See All Accessories See All BK Connect / Pulse See All API See All Microphone Sets See All Microphone Cartridges See All Acoustic Calibrators See All Special Microphones See All Microphone Pre-amplifiers See All Sound Sources See All Accessories for acoustic transducers See All Experimental testing See All Transducer Manufacturing (OEM) See All Accessories See All Non-rotating (calibration) See All Rotating See All CCLD (IEPE) accelerometers See All Charge Accelerometers See All Impulse hammers / impedance heads See All Cables See All Accessories See All Electroacoustics See All Noise Source Identification See All Environmental Noise See All Sound Power and Sound Pressure See All Noise Certification See All Industrial Process Control See All Structural Health Monitoring See All Electrical Devices Testing See All Electrical Systems Testing See All Grid Testing See All High-Voltage Testing See All Vibration Testing with Electrodynamic Shakers See All Structural Dynamics See All Machine Analysis and Diagnostics See All Calibration Services for Transducers See All Calibration Services for Handheld Instruments See All Calibration Services for Instruments & DAQ See All On-Site Calibration See All Resources See All Software License Management

Sound Quality

With higher sound quality, overall perceptions of product quality are raised – leading to increased sales and greater brand equity.

Request a quote
Driver pressing the turn-on audio button of the loudspeaker of the car

Consumers identify sound as a major component in the overall sound quality of any product – from cars to hand tools and heavy machinery. Although some product noise is inevitable, it can often be transformed into a suitable sound, such as the weighty thud of a high-quality car door, or even a desirable sound, such as the throb of a high-performance motorcycle.

A higher sound quality raises overall perceptions of product quality, which leads are raised – leading to increased sales and greater brand equity.

Sound quality development and evaluation

Objective and Subjective Sound Quality

Designing specifically for sound quality is challenging since ‘desirable’ sound quality is determined by how we perceive sound, using our ears and brains. Sound measurements such as frequency response describe the nature of the sound itself, but don’t measure the physical processes that take place in our ears, nor the cognitive processes in our brains.


However, all of these factors contribute to our subjective sound experience. To give designers clear targets that account for the whole picture and allow effective sound engineering, you need to quantify sound quality.

Sound Quality Metrics

Humans perceive some sounds more easily than others, so we can add weight to these using sound quality metrics such as Zwicker Loudness. In the end, however, only the human ear can tell the designer whether or not the product has the right sound. This means subjective testing of customer expectations is important when determining acceptable sound quality.

Jury testing allows listeners to rank sounds and score them for qualitative sound quality metrics like roughness. Analysis software translates these into objective values, thus giving engineers the sound target inputs they need to aim for, such as a certain amplitude vs. frequency profile. During development, you can apply this methodology to design changes, and to evaluate them as you optimize the sound quality for your product..

Studies have established that sound plays a major role in consumers’ perception of a product’s quality. Sound quality has been important to the automotive industry for decades and now is also a primary concern for manufacturers of consumer appliances, office equipment, power tools, marine equipment, off-highway construction vehicles, farm equipment, and other products.

Achieving desirable sound quality is a much more sophisticated process than simply determining that a measured sound is ‘too loud.’ It requires tools that can identify key characteristics of the sound that correlate to consumer perceptions of quality. These tools must be able to identify those aspects of the design that can be modified to eliminate specific, objectionable sounds and yet retain appropriate, desirable sounds. Those tools are part of Brüel & Kjær’s Automotive Sound Quality software product range.

System Suggestion

Interactive sound quality evaluation system overview

Brüel & Kjær’s Automotive Sound Quality software gives you tools for recording, analyzing, auditioning, dissecting and synthesizing sounds. It enables you to set objective and achievable quality targets for your products, specified in engineering terms. Despite its name, it is not exclusive to automotive sound quality; in fact, it is just as applicable to any industry.

Automotive Sound Quality Bundle BZ-6047 comprises four sound quality modules, containing tools to diagnose sound quality problems and produce desirable design targets.

Sound quality metrics are well-established as a sound and vibration engineering tool. Rather than simply quantifying sound pressure levels, sound quality metrics seek to predict human response to sound stimuli, and provide an objective measure of perceived sound quality.

The field of psychoacoustics has provided many different types of metrics, each designed to deal with particular aspects of human perception or with different types of sound. Some of these metrics have been standardized by ISO (International Organization for Standardization), ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung) so that they can be implemented consistently by suppliers of acoustics measurement systems.

 

System Suggestion

Sound quality metrics system overview

BK Connect Sound Quality Metrics Type 8405-G provides a set of the most common metrics in use today. These are, whenever possible, implemented according to standards or, when not covered by standards, they are implemented according to widely accepted methods in the public domain. These metrics have undergone an extensive programme of validation using commonly accepted stimuli with known outcomes.

Type 8405-G can be combined with BK Connect Data Processing Specialist , for basic sound quality engineering including binaural audio playback, fast spectrogram display, and interactive filtering. Additionally, BK Connect Time Data Recorder can be used to acquire data for sound quality analysis

Related Products

Modern Slavery Statement     Imprint    Cookie Policy    Privacy Policy    Sitemap    Ethical Business

 

 

© 2024 Hottinger Brüel & Kjær

 

 

close
nCode logo
Graphics Brand

We have moved ${referer} to www.hbkworld.com

 

This will bring together HBM, Brüel & Kjær, nCode, ReliaSoft, and Discom brands, helping you innovate faster for a cleaner, healthier, and more productive world.

close
ReliaSoft-Logo-webp
Graphics Brand

We have moved ${referer} to www.hbkworld.com

 

This will bring together HBM, Brüel & Kjær, nCode, ReliaSoft, and Discom brands, helping you innovate faster for a cleaner, healthier, and more productive world.

close
Prenscia HBM-Logo rgb
Graphics Brand

We have moved ${referer} to www.hbkworld.com

 

This will bring together HBM, Brüel & Kjær, nCode, ReliaSoft, and Discom brands, helping you innovate faster for a cleaner, healthier, and more productive world.

close
HBM-Logo blue rgb
Graphics Brand

We have moved ${referer} to www.hbkworld.com

 

This will bring together HBM, Brüel & Kjær, nCode, ReliaSoft, and Discom brands, helping you innovate faster for a cleaner, healthier, and more productive world.

close
logo of Brüel & Kjær (BKSV), experts of sound and vibration measurements from HBK
Graphics Brand

We have moved ${referer} to www.hbkworld.com

 

This will bring together HBM, Brüel & Kjær, nCode, ReliaSoft, and Discom brands, helping you innovate faster for a cleaner, healthier, and more productive world.