Safeguarding test signals for acoustic measurement using arbitrary sounds
This addresses the issue of intrusive acoustic testing for listeners, offering a practical solution for real-world applications.
The paper tackles the problem of measuring acoustic responses without using annoying test sounds by proposing a method to convert arbitrary sounds, like music, into suitable measurement signals, enabling the measurement of deviations and impulse responses while reproducing modified content.
We propose a simple method to measure acoustic responses using any sounds by converting them suitable for measurement. This method enables us to use music pieces for measuring acoustic conditions. It is advantageous to measure such conditions without annoying test sounds to listeners. In addition, applying the underlying idea of simultaneous measurement of multiple paths provides practically valuable features. For example, it is possible to measure deviations (temporally stable, random, and time-varying) and the impulse response while reproducing slightly modified contents under target conditions. The key idea of the proposed method is to add relatively small deterministic signals that sound like noise to the original sounds. We call the converted sounds safeguarded test signals.