How to organize unbiased PA/SR listening tests

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Presenter(s)

Eddy B. Brixen

Consultant / Ass. Professor
EBB-consult / DPA Microphones / Danish National School of Performing Arts
Smorum, Denmark
Malle Kaas

Live Sound Engineer
Women In Live Music
Bob McCarthy

Director of System Optimization
Meyer Sound
New York, New York, United States
David W. Scheirman

Director, Global Concert & Rental Business
Bose Professional
Carlsbad, California, United States
Scott Sugden

Product and Technology Outreach Manager
L-Acoustics
Westlake Village , California, United States

It is very common to arrange for comparisons of PA systems. However, often these comparisons are organized in a way, leaving procedures less transparent and results rather unclear. Standards for the assessment of loudspeakers do exist. The assessors basically must be trained for the purpose, and the set-up should support double-blind testing. However, in the test of large systems, the listening panel is not necessarily trained, and the practical problems of rigging huge arrays to some degree may weaken the procedures and the results. Also, finding a common denominator for the adjustment of several, sometimes very different systems, can be a problem.

This workshop seeks to provide good advice from experts in the field. Further, it reports the experience from double-blind testing that solved many of the problems in connection with a session testing five line arrays.