AES San Francisco 2010
Tutorial T11

Saturday, November 6, 5:00 pm — 6:15 pm (Room 130)

T11 - The iPod Generation—The Audio Artifacts the Consumer Is Listening To

Presenter:
Ian Corbett, Kansas City Kansas Community College - Kansas City, KS, USA

Abstract:
After a brief introduction to the psychoacoustic principles exploited by data compression (critical bands, minimum audition thresholds, simultaneous masking, and temporal masking), and a brief introduction to the capabilities and limitations imposed by the various components of encoders (frequency lines, windowing, temporal accuracy, compression considerations—CBR versus VBR, bit rates, and stereo modes), common artifacts produced by various encoders will be presented as audio, RTA, or waveform graph examples (stereo image changes, loss of bandwidth, pre and post echoes, double speak, ringing, bass fuzziness, flattening of dynamics, phase shift, “swirlies,” frequency content and noise addition, musical content removed and noise added, and the results of more and less adaptive encodings). The presentation will focus on the artifacts created by a variety of current and common music download and dissemination formats. To conclude, consumer awareness (or lack thereof) of these artifacts is discussed, along with signs that “better” is on the way.


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