“Speech Intelligibility Meter,” “Your Sound” Digital Assistant for Personal Sound Optimization, & Minikraken Headphone Amplifier AES67 to DSP Technology to be Presented at NAMM 2026 in Anaheim, CA, USA.
We look forward to welcoming you at our booth in the German Pavilion: #14916
The “Listening Effort Meter" (LE-Meter) developed by Fraunhofer IDMT in Oldenburg allows sound engineers to visualize listening effort during mixing and conduct post-mixing checks to optimize audio quality.
Unclear dialogue in a television series, excessively loud background music in reality TV, and sports interviews overlaid with audience cheers can impair the TV viewing experience. In film, television, streaming, or live productions, ensuring good speech intelligibility is one of the biggest challenges for professional sound engineers.
Researcher from Fraunhofer IDMT addressed this need with algorithms that provide recommendations for adjustments in real-time. Fraunhofer’s speech intelligibility measurement has already been integrated by various providers of post-production software.
Researchers from Fraunhofer IDMT-HSA have come up with a simple and elegant way to personalize sound and dynamics in a wide variety of applications. The “YourSound” technology is already implemented in headphone software and a car multimedia system.
The developed audio software allows individual sound settings without having to deal with complex sub-menus or parameters. Users of audio devices, e.g. multimedia platforms or smartphones, can adjust the audio to their personal needs and preferences - in a playful way.
The technology relies on the presentation of music samples, which users can adjust to their preference with a simple user interface. Once set, the individual presets have a positive effect on the overall sound. This can result in a better listening experience, no matter at which sound volume, for example. Thus, thanks to the new algorithms of Fraunhofer IDMT-HSA, the sound of music and films is adapted to individual hearing preferences.
The Fraunhofer IDMT’s headphone amplifier demo “Minikraken” lets you route, distribute, and record multi-channel audio using regular network switches instead of traditional audio cabling. Based on cost-efficient DSP hardware, Fraunhofer IDMT-HSA developed a fully functional software stack based on the AES67 standard to be used in various audio applications. AES67 is an open interoperability standard from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for professional audio over IP (AoIP) intended to connect various proprietary audio network systems (such as Dante, RAVENNA, Livewire) with each other.
Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT