Abstract:

An analysis is presented of two methods for the subjective evaluation of a set of classical guitars. One is based on ``blind'' listening tests by a general audience, and another is based on direct inspection and playing by guitar teachers and students. Subjective experiments reveal that the two types of tests produce essentially the same sorting of the guitars by subjective quality. The listening test, based on pairwise comparisons of guitars playing the same musical fragment, is judged by the subjects to be a difficult task. This is also reflected in the results. Additionally, an interesting effect is consistently observed in which a higher proportion of votes is obtained by the second guitar played in each pair, despite of the fact that listening to each pair of guitars lasts less than about 40 s. This seems to suggest a certain natural limit in the short-term memory abilities of the subjects in recalling the first guitar. A data processing technique is described that produces unbiased results from this type of test. The playing test, on the other hand, is judged by the players to be a comparatively easy task and the results are also more easily interpreted.