title: Comparing Binaural Pre-processing Strategies I: Instrumental Evaluation.
abstract: In a collaborative research project, several monaural and binaural noise reduction algorithms have been comprehensively evaluated. In this article, eight selected noise reduction algorithms were assessed using instrumental measures, with a focus on the instrumental evaluation of speech intelligibility. Four distinct, reverberant scenarios were created to reflect everyday listening situations: a stationary speech-shaped noise, a multitalker babble noise, a single interfering talker, and a realistic cafeteria noise. Three instrumental measures were employed to assess predicted speech intelligibility and predicted sound quality: the intelligibility-weighted signal-to-noise ratio, the short-time objective intelligibility measure, and the perceptual evaluation of speech quality. The results show substantial improvements in predicted speech intelligibility as well as sound quality for the proposed algorithms. The evaluated coherence-based noise reduction algorithm was able to provide improvements in predicted audio signal quality. For the tested single-channel noise reduction algorithm, improvements in intelligibility-weighted signal-to-noise ratio were observed in all but the nonstationary cafeteria ambient noise scenario. Binaural minimum variance distortionless response beamforming algorithms performed particularly well in all noise scenarios.
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany Regina.Baumgaertel@uni-oldenburg.de.
authors.forename: Regina M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Baumgärtel
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany Speech Signal Processing Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Krawczyk-Becker
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany Signal Processing Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marquardt
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Völker
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Hongmei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany HörTech gGmbH, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Herzke
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany HörTech gGmbH, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Graham
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Coleman
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany HörTech gGmbH, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Kamil
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Adiloğlu
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephan M A
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Ernst
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany Speech Signal Processing Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Timo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gerkmann
authors.affiliation: Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany Signal Processing Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Doclo
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Birger
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kollmeier
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany HörTech gGmbH, Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hohmann
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Group, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany Cluster of Excellence "Hearing4all," Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dietz
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation; D000465:Algorithms; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008144:Loudness Perception / Q000502:physiology; D009622:Noise / Q000517:prevention & control*; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013065:Speech Intelligibility / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: audio quality; binaural; instrumental evaluation; signal enhancement; speech intelligibility