What the new, music based audio measurements are for
In the end, we all are music listeners and from time to time - buyers of audio devices and gadgets. From listener perspective the only purpose of any audio measurements is to help with purchasing decisions when sound quality is important.
The traditional audio metric (THD, IMD, S/N ...) is helpless in this sense because of the two main reasons:
- It correlates badly to perceived sound quality. Literally, poor sounding devices can easily have good measurements and vice versa. For digital audio the current audio metric fails miserably.
- It is complicated. Only people with technical background are able to interpret those technical specifications correctly while most listeners are not specialists.
Furthermore, technical specs are usually provided by manufacturers of audio equipment and can't be easily verified by consumers. The measurement procedure normally requires expensive instruments and professional skills. Many manufacturers do not provide the specs for consumer equipment at all. Instead, their marketing departments just tell selling stories. Hi-End is full of such stories in particular.
On the contrary, the new, music based audio measurements:
- correlate much much better to human perception of sound quality;
- are valid for digital audio;
- do not contradict traditional audio metric but extend it;
- are understandable to people without technical background;
- can be performed at home using any recording device; accuracy of that device will determine final accuracy of the measurements.
This listener-centric audio metric will also strengthen consumer control over manufacturers of audio equipment (more about this). In order to have perfectly-sounding devices (including those aimed at VR experience), we, music lovers, should communicate better-grounded feedback to production side, not just our impressions and feelings.
Illustration by Herbert Aust