OPAQUE

What does it sound like? How can audio quality be measured? Which recording method offers the desired result?

The meaning of audio quality can be different experiences of a recorded sound – everything from whether the sound source’s position is easy to determine to which emotions the sound is evoking. OPAQUE is the project seeking to develop the judgement of audio quality in an optimal fashion, where the listener’s experience of the sound is in focus.

The aim is to devise a computer-aided tool for the assessment of audio quality. During the project, experiments were undertaken where listeners’ experiences were captured and analysed by means of software especially developed for this purpose. The result of this work is expected to have significance for several parties, like audio equipment manufacturers, audio producers and method developers. Seen from a broader perspective, OPAQUE may contribute to an increase of the quality of the sounds that surround us. The work is a co-operation with the School of Music at Luleå University of Technology and Bang & Olufsen in Denmark.