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Sound Quality Is The Quality of The: Audio

Sound quality is defined by three main characteristics: pitch, intensity, and quality. Pitch depends on the frequency of sound waves, intensity depends on the amplitude of waves, and quality depends on the form of the waves. Timbre, or tone quality, allows distinction between sounds of the same pitch and loudness, and is determined by harmonic content and dynamic characteristics like vibrato and attack-decay envelope. The amplitude of a sound wave is the maximum difference from ambient pressure, and the variation in amplitude over time forms the envelope.

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Kavitha Udayakumar
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68 views

Sound Quality Is The Quality of The: Audio

Sound quality is defined by three main characteristics: pitch, intensity, and quality. Pitch depends on the frequency of sound waves, intensity depends on the amplitude of waves, and quality depends on the form of the waves. Timbre, or tone quality, allows distinction between sounds of the same pitch and loudness, and is determined by harmonic content and dynamic characteristics like vibrato and attack-decay envelope. The amplitude of a sound wave is the maximum difference from ambient pressure, and the variation in amplitude over time forms the envelope.

Uploaded by

Kavitha Udayakumar
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Sound quality is the quality of the audio output from various electronic devices.

Sound quality can be


defined as the degree of accuracy with which a device records or emits the original sound waves.
Sound quality is also the physical pleasure or fatigue experienced by a listener.

Sounds may be generally characterized by pitch, loudness, and quality. Sound "quality" or "timbre"
describes those characteristics of sound which allow the ear to distinguish sounds which have the
same pitch and loudness. Timbre is then a general term for the distinguishable characteristics of a
tone. Timbre is mainly determined by the harmonic content of a sound and the dynamic
characteristics of the sound such as vibrato and the attack-decay envelope of the sound.

The sound intensity, I, (acoustic intensity) is defined as the sound power Pac per unit area A. The
usual context is the noise measurement of sound intensity in the air at a listener's location.

Sound has three basic characteristics: pitch, intensity, and quality. Each of these three characteristics
is associated with one of the properties of the source or the type of waves which it produces. The pitch
depends upon the frequency of the waves; the intensity depends upon the amplitude of the waves; and
the quality depends upon the form of the waves. With the proper combination of these characteristics,
the tone is pleasant to the ear. With the wrong combination, the sound quality turns into noise

The Pitch of Sound The term PITCH is used to describe the frequency of a sound. An object that
vibrates many times per second produces a sound with a high pitch, as with a police whistle. The slow
vibrations of the heavier strings of a violin cause a low-pitched sound. Thus, the frequency of the
wave determines pitch. When the frequency is low, sound waves are long; when it is high, the waves
are short. A sound can be so high in frequency that the waves reaching the ear cannot be heard.
Likewise, some frequencies are so low that the eardrums do not convert them into sound. The range of
sound that the human ear can detect varies with each individual.

The Intensity of Sound

The intensity of sound, at a given distance, depends upon the amplitude of the waves. Thus, a tuning
fork gives out more energy in the form of sound when struck hard than when struck gently. You
should remember that when a tuning fork is struck, the sound is omnidirectional (heard in all
directions), because the sound waves spread out in all directions, as shown in figure 1-14. You can see
from the figure that as the distance between the waves and the sound source increases, the energy in
each wave spreads over a greater area; hence, the intensity of the sound decreases. The speaking tubes
sometimes used aboard a ship prevent the sound waves from spreading in all directions by
concentrating them in one desired direction (unidirectional), producing greater intensity. Therefore,
the sound is heard almost at its original intensity at the opposite end of the speaking tube. The
unidirectional megaphone and the directional loudspeaker also prevent sound waves from spreading
in all directions..
The amplitude of a SOUND WAVE is the maximum amount by which the
instantaneous SOUND PRESSURE differs from the AMBIENT pressure. See diagram
under SIMPLE HARMONIC MOTION.

 
Two CYCLEs of a sine wave showing the amplitude of the pressure variation.

The variation of (maximum) amplitude over time is called the ENVELOPE of the
sound.

timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of
sound production, such as voices or musical instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that
mediate the perception of timbre include spectrum and envelope. Timbre is also known in
psychoacoustics as tone quality or tone color.

Envelope

A signal and its envelope marked with red

The timbre of a sound is also greatly affected by the following aspects of its envelope: attack
time and characteristics, decay, sustain, release (ADSR envelope) and transients. Thus these
are all common controls on synthesizers. For instance, if one takes away the attack from the
sound of a piano or trumpet, it becomes more difficult to identify the sound correctly, since
the sound of the hammer hitting the strings or the first blat of the player's lips are highly
characteristic of those instruments. The envelope is the overall amplitude structure of a
sound, so called because the sound just "fits" inside its envelope: what this means should be
clear from a time-domain display of almost any interesting sound, zoomed out enough that
the entire waveform is visible.

Psychoacoustics is the study of subjective human perception of sounds. Alternatively it can be


described as the study of the psychological correlates of acoustics—masking,,,fre
perception,,background noise etc..

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