19AES-AP05: How to Organize Unbiased PA/SR Shoot-Outs

Moderator:
Eddy Bøgh Brixen, EBB-consult - Smørum, Denmark; DPA Microphones - Allerød, Denmark
Presenters:
Gil Eva Craig, Western Audio Engineering Ltd. - Wellington, New Zealand; Auckland
Malle Kaas, Women in Live Music - Europe
Bob McCarthy, Meyer Sound - New York, NY, USA
Scott Sugden, L-Acoustics - Oxnard, CA, USA

It is very common to arrange for comparisons of PA systems. However, often these comparisons are organized in a way leaving procedures less transparent and results rather unclear. Standards for the assessment of loudspeakers do exist. The assessors basically must be trained for the purpose, and the set-up should support double-blind testing. However, in the test of big systems, the listening panel is not necessarily trained and the practical problems of rigging huge arrays to some degree may weaken the procedures and the results. This workshop seeks to provide good advice from experts in the field. Further, it reports the experience from double blind testing that solved most of the problems in connection with a session testing five line arrays.