Prediction of Listener Preference of In-Ear Headphones using the Harman Model
A test sequence that applies the Harman target curve for in ear headphones to a measurement made in SoundCheck to yield the predicted user preference for the device under test.
The purpose of this sequence is to apply the appropriate Harman target curve for in ear or on ear/around ear headphones to a measurement made in SoundCheck or to a set of recalled curves in order to yield the predicted user preference for the headphone of interest. The sequence gives the user the option of making an actual measurement or recalling curves into SoundCheck. The curves are then opened in an Excel template using a Print To Excel step where the necessary calculations are performed to produce a Predicted Preference score using a scale of 0 to 100. The spreadsheet calculates an Error Curve which is derived from subtracting the target curve from an average of the headphone left/right response. The standard deviation, slope and average of the Error Curve are calculated and then used to calculate the predicted preference score.
Acknowledgements
Listen would like to acknowledge Sean E. Olive, Todd Welti, and Omid Khonsaripour of Harman International. This sequence is inspired by their Audio Engineering Society papers “A Statistical Model that Predicts Listeners’ Preference Ratings of In Ear Headphones – Parts 1&2” presented at the AES 143rd in October of 2017. The authors also provided the spreadsheet which was used as the basis for the Excel template in this sequence to perform the preference calculations.
References
A Statistical Model that Predicts Listeners’ Preference Ratings of In-Ear Headphones: Part 1—Listening Test Results and Acoustic Measurements
A Statistical Model that Predicts Listeners’ Preference Ratings of In-Ear Headphones: Part 2—Development and Validation of the Model
A Statistical Model that Predicts Listeners’ Preference Ratings of Around-Ear and On-Ear Headphones
