Induction Cooker Acoustic Assessment: Sound Quality Analysis and Correlation with Jury Test Results

Living environment standards are raising addressing different aspects of human life such as thermal but also acoustic comfort. This paper focuses on the domestic environment of the kitchen presenting an acoustic assessment of a common household appliance which is the induction cooker. The induction cooker acoustic analysis is presented reporting measured signals acquired in operative conditions. Results also on sound quality are presented showing that values of Loudness, Sharpness and Open Articulation Index (OAI) are not critical. For example, the OAI values are all over 100% considering the selected signals. However, Sound Quality (SQ) metrics are not enough to evaluate the sound perception of the user towards the product. That is why it is important to target them towards the user needs thanks to a Jury Test (JT). The jury test, which has a total duration of about 4 minutes, has been presented to the jury in the A-B Comparison type presenting four sounds for a 10 s duration each. A demographic analysis of the jury is also carried out in order to better correlate the user preference considering the Consistency-Concordance values. The results present the correlation between Subjective Preference Index (SPI) values and the objective sound quality metrics, in order to tune a sound quality model for SPI prediction. Metrics of Loudness and Sharpness have proven the most representative of the use case. The jury test presented is therefore crucial to better relate the objective metrics in order to create a user-centered sound quality analysis of the product.