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Comparative Study
. 2016 Feb 10:20:2331216516630549.
doi: 10.1177/2331216516630549.

Dynamic Range Across Music Genres and the Perception of Dynamic Compression in Hearing-Impaired Listeners

Martin Kirchberger  1 , Frank A Russo  2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Dynamic Range Across Music Genres and the Perception of Dynamic Compression in Hearing-Impaired Listeners

Martin Kirchberger et al. Trends Hear. .

Abstract

Dynamic range compression serves different purposes in the music and hearing-aid industries. In the music industry, it is used to make music louder and more attractive to normal-hearing listeners. In the hearing-aid industry, it is used to map the variable dynamic range of acoustic signals to the reduced dynamic range of hearing-impaired listeners. Hence, hearing-aided listeners will typically receive a dual dose of compression when listening to recorded music. The present study involved an acoustic analysis of dynamic range across a cross section of recorded music as well as a perceptual study comparing the efficacy of different compression schemes. The acoustic analysis revealed that the dynamic range of samples from popular genres, such as rock or rap, was generally smaller than the dynamic range of samples from classical genres, such as opera and orchestra. By comparison, the dynamic range of speech, based on recordings of monologues in quiet, was larger than the dynamic range of all music genres tested. The perceptual study compared the effect of the prescription rule NAL-NL2 with a semicompressive and a linear scheme. Music subjected to linear processing had the highest ratings for dynamics and quality, followed by the semicompressive and the NAL-NL2 setting. These findings advise against NAL-NL2 as a prescription rule for recorded music and recommend linear settings.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02373228.

Keywords: compression; dynamic range; hearing aids; hearing loss; music genre.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Dynamic range of speech and 10 different music genres. The lines represent percentiles in dB (SPL) across frequency in kHz (99th: upper dashed line, 90th: upper solid line, 65th: thick line, 30th: lower solid line, and 10th: lower dashed line). SPL = sound pressure level.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Dynamic range comparison between different music genres and speech across frequency. The dynamics are calculated as the difference between the 99th and 30th percentiles according to the IEC 60118-15 standard. SPL = sound pressure level.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Schematic gain curves within a compression band for the linear, semicompressive, and compressive condition. The compression ratio of the semicompressive condition (CRsemi = Δgain/Δinput) is half the compression ratio of the compressive condition (CRcomp = 2 * Δgain/Δinput).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Example loudness curves of the linear, semicompressive, and compressive version (here for participant 29 and stimulus 3).
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Dynamic range of the test sample in Experiment 2 (left column) and the audio corpus in Experiment 1 (right column) for the genres choir, opera, orchestra, pop, and schlager. The lines represent percentiles in dB (SPL) across frequency in kHz (99th: upper dashed line, 90th: upper solid line, 65th: thick line, 30th: lower solid line, and 10th: lower dashed line).
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Example screen of the main test.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Ratings and standard error for the data on dynamics, quality, and loudness in the linear, semicompressive, and compressive condition.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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