The public’s subjective opinion is the final truth on sound quality

Evidence

In speech and audio techniques, the final ‘truth’ about the sound quality achieved lies in the general opinion of the larger public. A number of techniques have been developed to measure the quality of sound associated with a set of sounds. The sounds in the set may be produced, for example, with a set of different audio systems, handheld devices, vacuum cleaners, or concert halls. In the technical development of systems, the choice of parameters for the system often changes the sound output of the system in quite an unpredictable manner. Typically, the only possible method to evaluate the differences between the sounds is to organize subjective tests. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2339

Categorization

• CANDY: The idea that vacuum cleaners and concert halls are evaluated by the same subjective-testing machinery is a pleasantly surprising juxtaposition.