Table 1.
Peer-Reviewed Research Exploring the Effect of Different Compression Settings on Music Perception in Hearing-Impaired Listeners.
| Reference | No. of stimuli/genres | Methods/conditions | Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| van Buuren, Festen, & Houtgast (1999) | 4/piano, orchestra, pop, lied | Playback to one ear only. Conditions include all combinations of four different CRs (0.25, 0.5, 2, 4) and 3 different number of bands from (1, 4, 16) plus an uncompressed condition as benchmark. | Highest pleasantness ratings for linear amplification. |
| Hansen (2002) | 4/orchestra, chamber music, pop (not specified which genre contributed two stimuli) | Experiment 1: Conditions included 4 AT/RT combinations: 1/40 10/400 1/4000 100/4000. Gain shape was defined by NAL-R rule. CR was fixed at 2.1:1 for all channels and subjects. Experiment II: Conditions were 4 combinations of AT/RT/CT/CR: 1/40/20/2.1, 1/40/50/3, 1/40/50/2.1, 1/4000/20/2.1 | Highest preference for longer RT, smaller CR, and lower CT. |
| Davies-Venn, Souza, & Fabry (2007) | 2/classic instrumental, lied | Comparison of peak clipping, compression limiting, and WDRC for 80 dB SPL (loud) signals. | WDRC preferred over peak clipping and limiting. |
| Arehart, Kates, & Anderson (2011) | 3/orchestra, jazz instrumental, single voice | WDRC with 18 bands in 4 combinations of CR/RT: 10/10 ms, 10/70 ms, 2/70 ms, 2/200 ms | Lower CR and longer RT were preferred. All compressive settings were rated worse than the uncompressive setting (linear gain shape NAL-R). |
| Higgins, Searchfield, & Coad (2012) | 3/classic, jazz, rock | Comparison of ADRO and WDRC. ADRO was less compressive than WDRC. | ADRO preferred to WDRC. However, the experimental setup does not allow to attribute preference only to the linearity but also to further differences such as gain shape. |
| Moore et al. (2011) | 2/jazz, classic | Comparison of slow (AT: 50 ms, RT: 3 s) and fast compression speeds (AT: 10 ms, RT: 100 ms) at 3 input levels (dB SPL): 50, 65, and 80. | Longer time constants were preferred for classic at 65 dB SPL and 80 dB SPL and for jazz at 80 dB SPL. |
| Croghan et al. (2014) | 2/classic, rock | Three levels of music industry compression (no; mild, CT: −8 dBFS; heavy: −20 dBFS) combined with 3 levels of HA compression (linear; fast, RT: 50 ms; slow RT: 1000 ms) with either 3 or 18 channels. | WDRC generally least preferred. For classic, linear processing and slow WDRC was equally preferred. For rock, linear was preferred over slow WDRC. The effect of HA WDRC was more important than music-industry compression limiting for music preference. |
Note. CR = compression ratio; AT = attack time; RT = release time; CT = compression thresholds; WDRC = wide dynamic range compression (multiband dynamic compression); ADRO = adaptive dynamic range compression; SPL = sound pressure level; HA = hearing aid.