Subjective and Objective Assessment of Monaural and Binaural Aspects of Audio Quality

Recently, the binaural auditory-model-based quality prediction (BAM-Q) was successfully applied to predict binaural audio quality degradations, while the generalized power-spectrum model for quality (GPSM q ) has been demonstrated to account for a large variety of monaural signal distortions. For many applications, a combined monaural and binaural model would be advantageous, however, the contribution of monaural and binaural quality aspects to overall (spatial) quality is not conclusively clarified. Thus, the current study systematically investigated overall audio quality in a listening experiment for monaural and binaural distortions on music, speech, and noise, applied either in isolation or in combination. The resulting database was used for assessing different methods for combining BAM-Q and GPSM q to joint overall audio predictions for monaural and binaural signal distortions. It was investigated, if monaural or binaural quality aspects contribute stronger to overall audio quality. The results indicate that overall audio quality depends on the lower quality aspect, either monaural or binaural.