Product sound quality significantly shapes consumer perception and user experience. Thus, the assessment of perceptual sound quality holds particular relevance for the industry. Sound quality assessment in listening laboratories utilizing binaural recordings facilitates realistic sound reproduction. However, such conditions do not adequately capture potential audio-visual interactions and environmental influences on sound quality ratings. To address these limitations, this study develops an audio-visual virtual environment for product sound quality evaluation. The VR environment is compared with traditional listening studio environments and real-world conditions. This comparative analysis, focusing on coffee grinders as the selected product, uses a between-group listening experiment with semantic differential method with 22 participants for each listening condition.

The primary outcome of the study rejects the null hypothesis, highlighting significant differences in sound quality perceptions across different listening conditions. The research particularly discusses the disparities between the VR and real-world conditions in SQ ratings, underscoring the influence of both acoustical and non-acoustical factors in these perceptions. The findings suggest that while VR offers an immersive and potentially more representative environment for sound quality assessment, certain technical and experiential challenges need to be addressed for more accurate evaluations. These include considerations regarding the acquisition and simulation processes in VR and the novelty effect of VR environments.

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