Adapting the Quality of Experience Framework for Audio Archive Evaluation

Perceived quality of historical audio material that is subjected to digitisation and restoration is typically evaluated by individual judgements or with inappropriate objective quality models. This paper presents a Quality of Experience (QoE) framework for predicting perceived audio quality of sound archives. The approach consists in adapting concepts used in QoE evaluation to digital audio archives. Limitations of current objective quality models employed in audio archives are provided and reasons why a QoE-based framework can overcome these limitations are discussed. This paper shows that applying a QoE framework to audio archives is feasible and it helps to identify the stages, stakeholders and models for a QoE centric approach.