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Evaluation of audio test methods and measurements for end-of-line loudspeaker quality control

In order to minimize costly warranty repairs, loudspeaker OEMS impose tight specifications and a “total quality” requirement on their part suppliers. At the same time, they also require low prices. This makes it important for driver manufacturers and contract manufacturers to work with their OEM customers to define reasonable specifications and tolerances. They must understand both how the loudspeaker OEMS are testing as part of their incoming QC and also how to implement their own end-of-line measurements to ensure correlation between the two.

Authors: Steve Temme, Listen, Inc. and Viktor Dobos, Harman/Becker Automotive Systems Kft.
Presented at ISEAT 2017, Shenzhen, China

Full Paper

Evaluation of Audio Test Methods and Measurements for End-of-Line Automotive Loudspeaker Quality Control

In order to minimize costly warranty repairs, automotive manufacturers impose tight specifications and a “total quality” requirement on their part suppliers. At the same time, they also require low prices. This makes it important for automotive manufacturers to work with automotive loudspeaker suppliers to define reasonable specifications and tolerances, and to understand both how the loudspeaker manufacturers are testing and also how to implement their own measurements for incoming QC purposes.

Specifying and testing automotive loudspeakers can be tricky since loudspeakers are inherently nonlinear, time variant and affected by their working conditions & environment which can be change dramatically and rapidly in a vehicle. This paper examines the loudspeaker characteristics that can be measured, and discusses common pitfalls and how to avoid them on a loudspeaker production line. Several different audio test methods and measurements for end-of-the-line automotive speaker quality control are evaluated, and the most relevant ones identified. Speed, statistics, and full traceability are also discussed.

Authors: Steve Temme, Listen, Inc. and Viktor Dobos, Harman/Becker Automotive Systems Kft.
Presented at the 142nd AES Convention, Berlin, Germany

Full Paper