Developing audio effect plugins involves quite a lot of testing. While this appears to be an easy task as long as its all about measurable criteria, it gets way more tricky beyond that. Then there is no way around (extensive) listening tests which must be structured and follow some systematic approach to avoid ending up in fluffy “wine tasting” categories.
I’ve spend quite some time with such listening tests over the years and some of the insights and principles are distilled in this brief article. They are not only useful for checking mix qualities or judging device capabilities in general but also give some essential hints about developing our hearing.
No matter what specific audio assessment task one is up to, its always about judging the dynamic response of the audio (dynamics) vs its distribution across the frequency spectrum in particular (tonality). Both dimensions can be tested best by utilizing transient rich program material like mixes containing several acoustic instruments – e.g. guitars, percussion and so on – but which has sustaining elements and room information as well.
Drums are also a good starting point but they do not offer enough variety to cover both aspects we are talking about and to spot modulation artifacts (IMD) easily, just as an example. A rough but decent mix should do the job. On my very own, I do prefer raw mixes which are not yet processed that much to minimize the influence of flaws already burned into the audio content but more on that later.
Having such content in place allows to focus the hearing and to hear along a) the instrument transients – instrument by instrument – and b) the changes and impact within particular frequency ranges. Lets have a look into both aspects in more detail.
a) The transient information is crucial for our hearing because it is used not only to identify intruments but also to perform stereo localization. They basically impact how we can separate between different sources and how they are positioned in the stereo field. So lets say if something “lacks definition” it might be just caused by not having enough transient information available and not necessarily about flaws in equalizing. Transients tend to mask other audio events for a very short period of time and when a transient decays and the signal sustains, it unveils its pitch information to our hearing.
b) For the sustaining signal phases it is more relevant to focus on frequency ranges since our hearing is organized in bands of the entire spectrum and is not able to distinguish different affairs within the very same band. For most comparision tasks its already sufficient to consciously distinguish between the low, low-mid, high-mid and high frequency ranges and only drilling down further if necessary, e.g. to identify specific resonances. Assigning specific attributes to according ranges is the key to improve our conscious hearing abilities. As an example, one might spot something “boxy sounding” just reflecting in the mid frequency range at first sight. But focusing on the very low frequency range might also expose effects contributing to the overall impression of “boxyness”. This reveals further and previously unseen strategies to properly manage such kinds of effects.
Overall, I can not recommend highly enough to educate the hearing in both dimensions to enable a more detailed listening experience and to get more confident in assessing certain audio qualities. Most kinds of compression/distortion/saturation effects are presenting a good learning challenge since they can impact both audio dimensions very deeply. On the other hand, using already mixed material to assess the qualities of e.g. a new audio device turns out to be a very delicate matter.
Lets say an additional HF boost applied now sounds unpleasant and harsh: Is this the flaw of the added effect or was it already there but now just pulled out of that mix? During all the listening tests I’ve did so far, a lot of tainted mixes unveiled such flaws not visible at first sight. In case of the given example you might find root causes like too much mid frequency distortion (coming from compression IMD or saturation artifacts) mirroring in the HF or just inferior de-essing attempts. The most recent trend to grind each and every frequency resonance is also prone to unwanted side-effects but that’s another story.
Further psychoacoustic related hearing effects needs to be taken into account when we perform A/B testing. While comparing content at equal loudness is a well known subject (nonetheless ignored by lots of reviewers out there) it is also crucial to switch forth and back sources instantaneously and not with a break. This is due to the fact that our hearing system is not able to memorize a full audio profile much longer than a second. Then there is the “confirmation bias” effect which basically is all about that we always tend to be biased concerning the test result: Just having that button pressed or knowing the brand name has already to be seen as an influence in this regard. The only solution for this is utilizing blind testing.
Most of the time I listen through nearfield speakers and rarely by cans. I’m sticking to my speakers since more than 15 years now and it was very important for me to get used to them over time. Before that I’ve “upgraded” speakers several times unnecessarily. Having said that, using a coaxial speaker design is key for nearfield listening environments. After ditching digital room correction here in my studio the signal path is now fully analog right after the converter. The converter itself is high-end but today I think proper room acoustics right from the start would have been a better investment.
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