How to evaluate the sound quality of speakers?

                                    How to evaluate the sound quality of speakers?

1. What is listening evaluation?

In addition to the inspection of technical quality, when we listen to whether the sound of a speaker is good, we often still have to rely on our own sense of hearing to make a subjective evaluation. This is the listening evaluation.

However, the selection of good or bad audio equipment by ears alone is often affected by factors such as the listener's cultural background, subjective habits, preferences and cultivation, and ear acuity. Therefore, listening evaluation is highly subjective. The consistency is poor, and even at different times, the same sound from the same speaker may be evaluated differently by the same person.

We often use relative evaluation for audio equipment, and repeatedly play the same piece of content through open and blind listening methods, and make repeated comparisons under the condition that other factors such as volume and environment are as consistent as possible.

2. The standard of good voice

There are relative advantages and disadvantages, but the standard is clear. An ideal sound system playback sound should be a balanced sound, with full and soft bass, thick and powerful mid-bass, bright and clear mid-to-high pitch, and slender and clean treble. feel. In general, it is suitable for playing tracks of any style, without obvious bias and defects.

3. Eight dimensions of listening evaluation

For the above standards, we mainly carry out the eight dimensions of brightness, fullness, clarity, balance, softness, strength, realism and three-dimensionality.

1. Brightness: the high and midrange are sufficient, the sense of hearing is bright and lively, and the sense of hearing is dark if the system is not good.

2. Fullness: warmth, full mid-bass, moderate height, appropriate loudness, and constant reverberation. The sound is warm, comfortable and elastic. Bad systems sound thin and dry.

3. Clarity: The band has distinct layers and is clearly visible, while a bad system sounds muddy and fuzzy.

4. Balance: The proportion of each part is coordinated, the high, medium and bass are balanced, the left and right channels are consistent, and vice versa for bad systems.

5. Softness: softness, sound diffusion is good, treble is not harsh, pleasant and comfortable to hear, bad system is sharp and hard.

6. Power: The sound is solid and powerful, with a sense of impact, and can reflect the dynamic range of the sound source.

7. Realism: Keep the characteristics of the original sound, and the bad system will be distorted, and there will be sound staining, explosion, breaking, trembling and other phenomena.

8. Stereoscopic sense: You can clearly feel the sound source in each position in the space, the sound image positioning is accurate, the sound image group is distributed continuously, and there is an appropriate sense of width and depth.

4. Common sound quality evaluation

If you pay attention to the audition, you may often hear such visual sound evaluations as the sound of a certain speaker is crisp and transparent, or vigorous. Words are very simple, but they all have specific meanings. Below I will list common descriptions and their meanings:

1. Transparency-turbidity: Harmony, whether there is noise and distortion in the whole frequency band

2. Thick-thin: Thick means that the sound is solid and powerful, which can reflect the dynamic range of the sound. It is related to the energy of low frequency and low frequency.

3. Plump-shrunken: Plump is consistent with music form and instrument characteristics, mainly related to reverberation time and frequency characteristics.

4. Dry-moisture: Moisture means that the distortion is very small, the frequency response is wide and uniform, the sound comes out, has a certain loudness and brightness, the ratio of reverberation sound to direct sound is appropriate, and the hearing is not dry, round and smooth There is water; dry means that it sounds dry and laborious.

5. Pleasant-unpleasant: Unpleasant sounds have no sense of reality. Coloring of sounds, harmonic intermodulation distortion, too much reverberation, too much frequency compensation, audible clipping effects, etc. will all cause unpleasantness playback sound.

6. Natural-coloring: Coloring can be understood as a filter when taking pictures. Improper use of microphones and improper timbre compensation will cause sound coloration.

The subjectivity of listening evaluation does not mean randomness. Listening ability needs to be cultivated. In the words of audiophiles, it is "ear training".

Good auditory judgment requires not only healthy hearing and normal hearing, but more importantly, the ability to identify and distinguish all aspects of sound quality attributes, and a sharper perception threshold than ordinary people. A pair of sensitive ears, in addition to certain innate conditions, is more achieved through acquired training. Simply put, it means listening more and comparing more.