Sound Quality for Consumer Products
Optimisation of Sound Quality has become an increasingly important activity in the design and development of all products that emit noise, for example, automobiles, trains, aeroplanes and all kinds of household appliances.
There are two distinct reasons for optimising sound quality – firstly, to optimise the sound to satisfy the specific customer group; secondly, to increase the product’s competitiveness and sales. Most products include a variety of individual components from different sub-suppliers. These must satisfy quality requirements including those for sound performance.
The optimisation process involves the following steps:
- Recording of sounds on site, for examples, in a car on a test track using a Head and Torso Simulator (HATS)
- Analysing the sounds in a laboratory using both traditional methods and specific objective metrics such as Zwicker Loudness
- Simulating changes in the sounds using a number of edits
- Preparing and conducting subjective listening tests
- Creating product-specific Combination Metrics to cut development time and cost
Brüel & Kjær offers complete systems from the simplest to the most advanced.
