Synchronized phase harmonics produce a ‘buzzy’ sharpness perceptible without room reflections

Evidence

Such insensitivity to phase can often be assumed, although it has been shown that in some cases the phase and a modification of the phase have a prominent effect on perception. In fact, if the signals in Figure 11.9 are listened to with headphones or with loudspeakers closeby (without the effect of the room), a clear difference is perceived. In the upper panel, all partials of the harmonic complex have their maxima aligned at some temporal position, resulting in a prominent, repetitive peak at corresponding positions. In the lower panel, the phase relationships of the harmonics are random, and no such ‘peakiness’ is seen. The first signal is sharper; that is, it is perceived to have more energy at high frequencies. In addition, the tonal character of such sound has been called ‘buzzy’ (Moore, 2002), or as having high ‘buzzyness’ (Laitinen et al., 2013), referring to a low vibrating sound like that of a bee. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 1265

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the technical term ‘buzzyness’ for the percept of phase-aligned harmonic partials.
• SHARE: A nerdy auditory-psychology tidbit for anyone working on audio codecs or psychoacoustic models.
• XREF: Relates to headphone-versus-room listening differences relevant to binaural audio and loudspeaker design work.