This work deals with the perceptual evaluation of the sound reproduction. Our aim is to elaborate a protocol allowing to assess the influence of nonlinearities and distortions of a loudspeaker. Such a protocol requires gathering a large set of loudspeakers together with an appropriate method for its evaluation. This study deals with the perceptual evaluation of dissimilarities between different loudspeakers rather than their absolute quality judgments. Thanks to a multidimensional scaling technique, this approach allows to uncover the criteria used by the listeners to differentiate various distorting loudspeakers. First, we used synthesized signals to generate samples of sounds resulting from controlled distortion. Numerous distorted stimuli have been generated that simulate sounds radiated by a loudspeaker. Then, we propose a method suitable for the evaluation of a large set of stimuli. In order to verify its application to the estimation of dissimilarity, simulations and listening tests have been conducted. Finally, this listening test method has been applied to the created set of distorting loudspeakers in order to verify the use of our protocol and provide some preliminaries results concerning the perception of nonlinear distortion.
