MUSHRA

MUSHRA stands for MUltiple Stimuli with Hidden Reference and Anchor and is a methodology for conducting a codec listening test to evaluate the perceived quality of the output from lossy audio compression algorithms. It is defined by ITU-R recommendation BS.1534-3. The MUSHRA methodology is recommended for assessing 'intermediate audio quality'. For very small audio impairments, Recommendation ITU-R BS.1116-3 (ABC/HR) is recommended instead. MUSHRA stands for MUltiple Stimuli with Hidden Reference and Anchor and is a methodology for conducting a codec listening test to evaluate the perceived quality of the output from lossy audio compression algorithms. It is defined by ITU-R recommendation BS.1534-3. The MUSHRA methodology is recommended for assessing 'intermediate audio quality'. For very small audio impairments, Recommendation ITU-R BS.1116-3 (ABC/HR) is recommended instead. The main advantage over the mean opinion score (MOS) methodology (which serves a similar purpose) is that MUSHRA requires fewer participants to obtain statistically significant results. This is because all codecs are presented at the same time, on the same samples, so that a paired t-test or a repeated measures analysis of variance can be used for statistical analysis. Also, the 0–100 scale used by MUSHRA makes it possible to rate very small differences.