JOURNAL FEATURES
A quick guide to recent selected AES Journal features
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During the AES Spring Show 2021 a number of papers were presented on the topic of audio quality and characteristics. As research into the features of audio quality continues, the emphasis is increasingly on understanding the relationship with human emotions, and on how machines can be taught to do human-like analysis or synthesis. In work on machine learning and quality prediction we see that such models need large quantities of data on the way that different groups of listeners perceive different types of sound quality impairments. One way of doing this may be to augment the data set by artificial segmentation of related audio material. When it comes to the emotional implications or affects of different types or qualities of sounds, there is increased interest in measuring physiological responses to different stimuli, and in mapping emotional affects to appropriate acoustical characteristics of sounds. Separating the effects of audio content from those of its quality is a persistent challenge in this type of work.
Much of the current research and development in the field of loudspeaker transducers is concerned with the challenges of how to make them both smaller and louder. In some cases this involves novel mechanical designs, and in others it involves the use of signal processing to enable existing designs to be pushed closer and closer to their limits. In relation to the directional characteristics of transducers in different contexts, two studies are reported here. One concerns the effect of a user's hands on the directional radiation of a mobile phone speaker, and the other deals with the directionality and noise pollution resulting from different configurations of subwoofers in a sound reinforcement application.
