Quality and loudness judgments for music subjected to compression limiting

Dynamic-range compression (DRC) is used in the music industry to maximize loudness. The amount of compression applied to commercial recordings has increased over time due to a motivating perspective that louder music is always preferred. In contrast to this viewpoint, artists and consumers have argued that using large amounts of DRC negatively affects the quality of music. However, little research evidence has supported the claims of either position. The present study investigated how DRC affects the perceived loudness and sound quality of recorded music. Rock and classical music samples were peak-normalized and then processed using different amounts of DRC. Normal-hearing listeners rated the processed and unprocessed samples on overall loudness, dynamic range, pleasantness, and preference, using a scaled paired-comparison procedure in two conditions: un-equalized, in which the loudness of the music samples varied, and loudness-equalized, in which loudness differences were minimized. Results indicated that a small amount of compression was preferred in the un-equalized condition, but the highest levels of compression were generally detrimental to quality, whether loudness was equalized or varied. These findings are contrary to the "louder is better" mentality in the music industry and suggest that more conservative use of DRC may be preferred for commercial music.     

ON AVOIDANCE ACTIVITIES IN FISHERY ENFORCEMENT MODELS

Compliance and enforcement in fisheries are important issues from an economic point of view since management measures are useless without a certain level of enforcement. These conclusions come from the well‐established theoretical literature on compliance and enforcement problems within fisheries and a common result is that, it is efficient to set fines as high as possible and monitoring as low as possible, when fines are costless and offenders are risk neutral. However, this result is sensitive to the assumption that fishermen cannot engage in avoidance activities, e.g., activities to reduce the likelihood of being detected when noncomplying. The paper presents a model of fisheries that allows the fishermen to engage in avoidance activities. The conclusions from the model are that, under certain circumstances, fines are costly transfers to society since they not only have a direct positive effect on the level of deterrence, but also an indirect negative effect in the form of increased avoidance activities to reduce the probability of detection. The paper contributes to the literature on avoidance activities by introducing the externality from the illegal behavior as an endogenous effect on other offenders. For an externality, that has an exogenous effect on other actors, Malik shows that fines are only costly transfers for conditional deterrence (when one actor is deterred while another actor is not). For fisheries, we show that fines are also costly transfers under no deterrence (when no agents are deterred).     

Binaural interference in the free field

In an anechoic chamber the minimum audible angle (MAA) was measured in seven normal-hearing adults for a narrow band of noise centered at 4000 Hz (target). In the absence of an interfering stimulus, the average MAA was 2.1°. When a low-frequency interferer (a narrow band of noise centered at 500 Hz) was pulsed on and off with the target from directly in front of the subject, the average MAA was significantly elevated (13.4°). However, if the interferer was continuously present, or if it consisted of two independent noises presented from ±90°, interference was much reduced. The interference effect was asymmetric: a high-frequency interferer did not result in elevation of MAA threshold for a low-frequency target. These results are similar to those that have been extensively reported for stimuli under headphones [Bernstein and Trahiotis (1995). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 98, 155-163]. These data are consistent with the notion that interference from a spectrally remote low-frequency interferer occurs in the free field to the extent that the target and interferer are fused into a single perceptual object. If cues are provided that promote perceptual segregation (such as temporal onset differences or spatial location differences), the interference is reduced or eliminated.