An Audio Quality Evaluation of Commercial Digital Radio Systems

• Published in: IEEE transactions on broadcasting Vol. 57; no. 3; pp. 629 - 635
• Main Authors: Lee, Sewon, Lee, Yong-Tae, Seo, Jeongil, Baek, Myung-Sun, Lim, Chae-Heon, Park, Hochong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.09.2011; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Audio codec; audio quality; Audio signals; Bit rate; Broadcasting; Channel capacity; Codecs; Coding, codes; Consistency; Digital; Digital broadcasting; Digital communication; digital radio; Exact sciences and technology; High definition video; Information, signal and communications theory; Optimization; quality evaluation; Radio; Radio equipment; Satellite radio; Signal and communications theory; Statistical analysis; Systems, networks and services of telecommunications; Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Transform coding; Transmission and modulation (techniques and equipments); digital radio; Audio codec; Channel capacity; Acoustic signal; Information rate; Sound quality; Information transmission; Subjective evaluation; quality evaluation; Digital system; Codec; Audio signal; Radio equipment; Quality control; audio quality
• ISSN: 0018-9316; 1557-9611
• DOI: 10.1109/TBC.2011.2152910

In this paper, the subjective audio quality of various digital radio systems is evaluated. In order to estimate the true audio quality of a commercial digital radio service, test audio signals were acquired directly from the digital radio equipment in the field. Twenty-one subjects participated in the test after pre-screening. The evaluation process consisted of two phases. In the first phase, the audio quality of each system was evaluated as a function of the bit rates, and the relationship between the audio quality and the channel capacity of each system was obtained. In order to confirm the evaluation consistency, in the second phase, the audio quality as a function of the systems was evaluated. Assuming that the digital radio equipment tested in this paper is used for service, these evaluation results provide the true audio quality of commercial digital radio services for various types of systems and bit rates, and can be used as a reference to determine the optimal channel capacity of digital radio service for a given target audio quality.