Audio content is defined by meaning to a listener, not technical properties

Evidence

The concept quality has two meanings. ‘Quality’ is used in this book as a synonym for ’excellence’, to grade or rank objects on a subjective scale of preferability such as ‘good–poor’, based on some explicit or implicit criteria. The other common meaning is related to categorization by type or class of objects. When two observations or entities cannot be compared on the same (metric) scale they are said to be qualitatively different. Such category-related sound quality pertains to perceived features, attributes, factors, dimensions, or properties of auditory events, such as loudness or roughness. However, in this book, the term ‘sound quality’ is limited to the meaning involving preferability or acceptability. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2311 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Listeners cannot report auditory attributes on an absolute scale; Sound quality means judged preferability, not category membership — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2311; Sound reproduction’s endpoint is the human listener, not fidelity per se (+7 more)

Related

• Sound quality means judged preferability, not category membership (similarity 0.88)
• Sound quality is judged as deviations from ideal amounts of perceptual dimensions (similarity 0.86)
• Sound reproduction’s endpoint is the human listener, not fidelity per se (similarity 0.85)
• All sound quality judgments derive from properties of the human auditory system. (similarity 0.84)
• Authentic sound reproduction is judged by perceptual identity, not signal fidelity (similarity 0.84)
• Sound quality judgments depend on listener context and expectations (similarity 0.84)
• Judged pleasantness does not track the physical quality of a sound (similarity 0.83)
• Sound quality is fundamentally subjective and requires perceptual testing to characterize (similarity 0.83)
• Listeners judge reproduced sound against accumulated experience of live sound (similarity 0.83)
• Sound denotes both a physical wave and the subjective percept it evokes (similarity 0.83)
• Psychoacoustics quantifies physical sound signals into perceived auditory attributes (similarity 0.82)
• Sound reproduction quality depends on both physical acoustics and human perception (similarity 0.82)
• Recorded audio is engineered for plausibility, not faithful reproduction of reality (similarity 0.82)
• Sound quality cannot be assessed except through psychophysical experiments with human subjects (similarity 0.81)
• Perceived loudness depends on frequency content and duration, not just sound pressure level (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Sound reproduction’s endpoint is the human listener, not fidelity per se #corroborates (0.80)
• Sound quality means judged preferability, not category membership #corroborates (0.75) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2311
• Semantic knowledge helps listeners interpret degraded speech signals #corroborates (0.75)
• Linguistic thoughts can be heard as sounds rather than meanings #qualifies (0.75) — Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening, 221
• Listeners habituate to reproduced-sound faults without comparison listening #exemplifies (0.75) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 158
• Information content is defined by surprise or improbability, not repetition #corroborates (0.75)
• Listeners cannot report auditory attributes on an absolute scale #complicates (0.72)
• Raw audio recordings lack semantic searchable metadata about musical content #exemplifies (0.72)
• Impulse response measurements can misrepresent what listeners actually hear #complicates (0.72)
• Product sounds should inform about function without exceeding annoyance #exemplifies (0.72)