For people with profound hearing loss, a cochlear implant (CI) is able to provide access to sounds that support speech perception. With current technology, most CI users obtain very good speech understanding in quiet listening environments. However, many CI users still struggle when listening to music. Efforts have been made to preprocess music for CI users and improve their music enjoyment. This work investigates potential modifications of instrumental music to make it more accessible for CI users. For this purpose, we used two datasets with varying complexity and containing individual tracks of instrumental music. The first dataset contained trios and it was newly created and synthesized for this study. The second dataset contained orchestral music with a large number of instruments. Bilateral CI users and normal hearing listeners were asked to remix the multitracks grouped into melody, bass, accompaniment, and percussion. Remixes could be performed in the amplitude, spatial, and spectral domains. Results showed that CI users preferred tracks being panned toward the right side, especially the percussion component. When CI users were grouped into frequent or occasional music listeners, significant differences in remixing preferences in all domains were observed.

中文翻译：

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双侧人工耳蜗使用者对西方器乐古典音乐的混音偏好


对于严重听力损失的人来说，人工耳蜗 (CI) 能够提供支持言语感知的声音。利用当前技术，大多数 CI 用户在安静的聆听环境中获得了很好的语音理解。然而，许多 CI 用户在听音乐时仍然遇到困难。致力于为CI用户进行音乐预处理，提高他们的音乐享受。这项工作研究了器乐的潜在修改，使其更容易为 CI 用户所接受。为此，我们使用了两个具有不同复杂性并包含单独的器乐曲目的数据集。第一个数据集包含三重奏，它是为本研究新创建和合成的。第二个数据集包含带有大量乐器的管弦乐。双边 CI 用户和正常听力听众被要求重新混音分为旋律、贝司、伴奏和打击乐的多音轨。可以在幅度、空间和频谱域中进行混音。结果表明，CI 用户更喜欢向右侧平移的曲目，尤其是打击乐部分。当 CI 用户被分为经常听音乐或偶尔听音乐时，我们观察到所有领域的混音偏好存在显着差异。