HEAD acoustics Introduces Silent Motorized Rotation of Artificial Heads

HEAD acoustics created the first virtually silent platform for the natural rotation of artificial heads, enabling all types of measurements under natural behavior conditions, critical for many applications including systems with head-tracking. move°S is an optional, software-controlled upgrade for all HEAD measurement systems HMS II.x and Head Shoulder Units (HSU) III from the 2021 generation onwards.

HEAD acoustics continues to perfect measurement and analysis solutions in the field of speech and communication quality, expanding from a vast range of hardware platforms and tools - including its HMS II.3 fullband artificial head - all the way to dedicated software that adjusts to the quickly-evolving needs in this field. The German company continues to expand VoCAS, a sophisticated software tool for performance evaluation of automatic speech recognizers, addressing real life conditions in the lab.

HEAD acoustics introduced a new and much improved design for its artificial heads paving the way for new era of communication and audio quality measurements. The new generation of artificial heads ensures a new level of realism, precision and flexibility when coupled with HEAD acoustics modular concept approach, meeting the most diverse of applications in the field of acoustic measurement technology.

Measuring very low signal levels like idle noise of Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) headphones requires highly accurate measurement equipment. With the new binaural artificial head measurement system HMS II.3-LN (Low Noise), German test and measurement specialists HEAD acoustics offers a new artificial head that is suitable for low noise measurements of close to the ear sound sources. The ear simulators with highly sensitive microphones assure a very low inherent noise of 16 dBSPL(A).

In this article for audioXpress, Hans W. Gierlich, managing director of HEAD acoustics, explains how to test the different performance parameters of smart speakers and smart home devices under real-life conditions, how to deal with the challenges of optimizing systems for voice and audio quality, how to simulate environmental conditions, user behavior, and test the performance of the various functionalities. This article was originally published in audioXpress, January 2019.

HEAD acoustics announced that its HMS II.3 Artificial Head measurement system is able to transmit real speech equalized up to almost 20 kHz. According to the German company, the HMS II.3 Artificial Head, designed for measurement of close to-the-ear transducers, such as handsets, headsets, headphones, hearing protectors and hearing aids, is perfectly suited for testing the upcoming generation of VoLTE mobile phones, among many other applications that require super-wideband capabilities.