Sound quality evaluation for luxury refrigerator door closing sound

Abstract

In this study, we carried out subjective evaluation tests employing 19 refrigerator door closing sounds to quantify the luxury feeling. By applying factor analysis to the subjective evaluation results, the sound quality of the refrigerator door closing sound was found to be expressed by the following two factors: overall loudness and the pitch of the sound. Subsequently, luxury feeling evaluation model was obtained through multiple regression analysis. As the result, the luxury feeling of the door closing sound was evaluated to be high when the sound was softer and had lower pitch. Then, we prepared several luxury door closing sounds according to the obtained evaluation model through a filter processing and conducted subjective evaluation tests again to verify the evaluation model. The result shows that the amplitude increased sound at low frequency band under 100 Hz, which was calculated to be high luxury by the evaluation model, was actually evaluated as the best among the presented sounds through the subjective test. And the luxury sound quality evaluation method was confirmed to be useful to quantify and estimate the sound quality of the refrigerator door closing sound.