A weighting filter is used to emphasize or suppress some aspects of a phenomenon compared to others, for measurement or other purposes.
Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arises when the brain receives and perceives a sound.
A noise weighting is a specific amplitude-vs.-frequency characteristic that is designed to allow subjectively valid measurement of noise. It emphasises the parts of the spectrum that are most important.
The sone is a unit of loudness, the subjective perception of sound pressure. The study of perceived loudness is included in the topic of psychoacoustics and employs methods of psychophysics. Doubling the perceived loudness doubles the sone value. Proposed by Stanley Smith Stevens in 1936, it is not an SI unit.
The phon is a logarithmic unit of loudness level for tones and complex sounds. Loudness is measured in sones, a linear unit. Human sensitivity to sound is variable across different frequencies; therefore, although two different tones may present an identical sound pressure to a human ear, they may be psychoacoustically perceived as differing in loudness. The purpose of the phon is to provide a logarithmic measurement for perceived sound magnitude, while the primary loudness standard methods result in a linear representation. A sound with a loudness of 1 sone is judged equally loud as a 1 kHz tone with a sound pressure level of 40 decibels above 20 micropascals. The phon is psychophysically matched to a reference frequency of 1 kHz. In other words, the phon matches the sound pressure level (SPL) in decibels of a similarly perceived 1 kHz pure tone. For instance, if a sound is perceived to be equal in intensity to a 1 kHz tone with an SPL of 50 dB, then it has a loudness of 50 phons, regardless of its physical properties. The phon was proposed in DIN 45631 and ISO 532 B by Stanley Smith Stevens.
Audio system measurements are used to quantify audio system performance. These measurements are made for several purposes. Designers take measurements to specify the performance of a piece of equipment. Maintenance engineers make them to ensure equipment is still working to specification, or to ensure that the cumulative defects of an audio path are within limits considered acceptable. Audio system measurements often accommodate psychoacoustic principles to measure the system in a way that relates to human hearing.
An equal-loudness contour is a measure of sound pressure level, over the frequency spectrum, for which a listener perceives a constant loudness when presented with pure steady tones. The unit of measurement for loudness levels is the phon and is arrived at by reference to equal-loudness contours. By definition, two sine waves of differing frequencies are said to have equal-loudness level measured in phons if they are perceived as equally loud by the average young person without significant hearing impairment.
ReplayGain is a proposed technical standard published by David Robinson in 2001 to measure and normalize the perceived loudness of audio in computer audio formats such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis. It allows media players to normalize loudness for individual tracks or albums. This avoids the common problem of having to manually adjust volume levels between tracks when playing audio files from albums that have been mastered at different loudness levels.
A weighting curve is a graph of a set of factors, that are used to 'weight' measured values of a variable according to their importance in relation to some outcome. An important example is frequency weighting in sound level measurement where a specific set of weighting curves known as A-, B-, C-, and D-weighting as defined in IEC 61672 are used. Unweighted measurements of sound pressure do not correspond to perceived loudness because the human ear is less sensitive at low and high frequencies, with the effect more pronounced at lower sound levels. The four curves are applied to the measured sound level, for example by the use of a weighting filter in a sound level meter, to arrive at readings of loudness in phons or in decibels (dB) above the threshold of hearing.
In digital and analog audio, headroom refers to the amount by which the signal-handling capabilities of an audio system can exceed a designated nominal level. Headroom can be thought of as a safety zone allowing transient audio peaks to exceed the nominal level without damaging the system or the audio signal, e.g., via clipping. Standards bodies differ in their recommendations for nominal level and headroom.
ITU-R 468 is a standard relating to noise measurement, widely used when measuring noise in audio systems. The standard, now referred to as ITU-R BS.468-4, defines a weighting filter curve, together with a quasi-peak rectifier having special characteristics as defined by specified tone-burst tests. It is currently maintained by the International Telecommunication Union who took it over from the CCIR.
The process of frequency weighting involves emphasizing the contribution of particular aspects of a phenomenon over others to an outcome or result; thereby highlighting those aspects in comparison to others in the analysis. That is, rather than each variable in the data set contributing equally to the final result, some of the data is adjusted to make a greater contribution than others. This is analogous to the practice of adding (extra) weight to one side of a pair of scales in order to favour either the buyer or seller.
A sound level meter is used for acoustic measurements. It is commonly a hand-held instrument with a microphone. The best type of microphone for sound level meters is the condenser microphone, which combines precision with stability and reliability. The diaphragm of the microphone responds to changes in air pressure caused by sound waves. That is why the instrument is sometimes referred to as a sound pressure level meter (SPL). This movement of the diaphragm, i.e. the sound pressure, is converted into an electrical signal. While describing sound in terms of sound pressure, a logarithmic conversion is usually applied and the sound pressure level is stated instead, in decibels (dB), with 0 dB SPL equal to 20 micropascals.
Loudness monitoring of programme levels is needed in radio and television broadcasting, as well as in audio post production. Traditional methods of measuring signal levels, such as the peak programme meter and VU meter, do not give the subjectively valid measure of loudness that many would argue is needed to optimise the listening experience when changing channels or swapping disks.
Dialnorm is the metadata parameter that controls playback gain within the Dolby Laboratories Dolby Digital (AC-3) audio compression system. Dialnorm stands for dialog normalization. Dialnorm is an integer value with range 1 to 31 corresponding to a playback gain of -30 to 0 dB (unity) respectively. Higher values afford more headroom and are appropriate for dynamic material such as an action film.
A-weighting is a form of frequency weighting and the most commonly used of a family of curves defined in the International standard IEC 61672:2003 and various national standards relating to the measurement of sound pressure level. A-weighting is applied to instrument-measured sound levels in an effort to account for the relative loudness perceived by the human ear, as the ear is less sensitive to low audio frequencies. It is employed by arithmetically adding a table of values, listed by octave or third-octave bands, to the measured sound pressure levels in dB. The resulting octave band measurements are usually added to provide a single A-weighted value describing the sound; the units are written as dB(A). Other weighting sets of values – B, C, D and now Z – are discussed below.
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the reception of such waves and their perception by the brain. Only acoustic waves that have frequencies lying between about 20 Hz and 20 kHz, the audio frequency range, elicit an auditory percept in humans. In air at atmospheric pressure, these represent sound waves with wavelengths of 17 meters (56 ft) to 1.7 centimeters (0.67 in). Sound waves above 20 kHz are known as ultrasound and are not audible to humans. Sound waves below 20 Hz are known as infrasound. Different animal species have varying hearing ranges.
Psychoacoustics is the branch of psychophysics involving the scientific study of the perception of sound by the human auditory system. It is the branch of science studying the psychological responses associated with sound including noise, speech, and music. Psychoacoustics is an interdisciplinary field including psychology, acoustics, electronic engineering, physics, biology, physiology, and computer science.
EBU R 128 is a recommendation for loudness normalisation and maximum level of audio signals. It is primarily followed during audio mixing of television and radio programmes and adopted by broadcasters to measure and control programme loudness. It was first issued by the European Broadcasting Union in August 2010 and most recently revised in August 2020.
Loudness, K-weighted, relative to full scale (LKFS) is a standard loudness measurement unit used for audio normalization in broadcast television systems and other video and music streaming services.
