|
 |
Assault & Battery Extra
In this month’s issue we tell you about the many tough tests new mobile phones endure, here we look at the testing of the various audio elements.
In this month’s issue of Flipside we tell you about the many tough tests new mobile phones are forced to endure to make sure you won’t destroy them the first time you drop yours or take it to a sandy beach. But once these physical checks are over, a whole new, much more complex kind of testing begins in order to evaluate the various audio elements involved in a modern handset.
 In general, the labs that are used to carry out these tests need to have some special acoustic properties. At its North Carolina testing facilities, Sony Ericsson has what it’s known as an anti-echo (or anechoic) chamber. These look like the rooms that are used to test all electronic equipment (like the vehicle pictured here) for electromagnetic interference that could make other electronic equipment nearby go wrong.
 Inside this room, which has all its walls, ceiling and even floor covered by special sound-absorbing panels, engineers study the audio levels of the tiny microphone that you need in your phone to pick up your voice.
While anechoic chambers are used to generate sound signals that will find it extremely difficult to bounce back from the walls, sometimes engineers need to recreate exactly the opposite: rooms where sound will reflect back and forth seemingly forever. And Sony Ericsson also has one of these reverberation chambers. The company uses it to test how the phone’s mic and speaker perform under the worst possible acoustic conditions.
 Other audio components that need to be tested include polyphonic ringers, audio recorders and associated hands-free car kit devices. For each of them, engineers will need to determine the adequate level for a number of technical parameters, which include things like frequency response, microphone sensitivity, loudness rating, melody analysis and rub & buzz.
Unlike the machines that are used to test the physical strength and durability of handsets (which as you can see in Flipside are mainly of a mechanic or simple robotic type), audio analysers come in the shape of electronic boxes that look somewhat similar to a standard digital TV set-top box.
And unlike those other mean machines, these won’t try to shatter the thing. Just make it sound better.
|
|
|
