Human auditory adaptation neutralizes room acoustics but not device imperfections

Evidence

Thus, perfect authenticity in sound reproduction would require an identical listening set-up in a room identical to the mastering studio. Fortunately, this is not necessary, since sufficient quality of the audio experience can also be obtained in other listening conditions. The acoustic differences of listening rooms have an effect on the quality, but the ability of humans to adapt to different acoustic conditions mitigates the differences, as discussed earlier. Impairments in audio devices, on the other hand, often have a significant effect on the quality of the experience. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2359

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to psychoacoustic adaptation/auditory scene analysis literature and to the book’s earlier section on human adaptation to acoustic conditions.