The First Cadenza Signal Processing Challenge: Improving Music for Those
  With a Hearing Loss
Gerardo Roa Dabike Scott Bannister Jennifer Firth Simone Graetzer Rebecca Vos Michael A. Akeroyd Jon Barker Trevor J. Cox Bruno Fazenda Alinka Greasley William Whitmer
The Cadenza project aims to improve the audio quality of music for those who
have a hearing loss. This is being done through a series of signal processing
challenges, to foster better and more inclusive technologies. In the first
round, two common listening scenarios are considered: listening to music over
headphones, and with a hearing aid in a car. The first scenario is cast as a
demixing-remixing problem, where the music is decomposed into vocals, bass,
drums and other components. These can then be intelligently remixed in a
personalized way, to increase the audio quality for a person who has a hearing
loss. In the second scenario, music is coming from car loudspeakers, and the
music has to be enhanced to overcome the masking effect of the car noise. This
is done by taking into account the music, the hearing ability of the listener,
the hearing aid and the speed of the car. The audio quality of the submissions
will be evaluated using the Hearing Aid Audio Quality Index (HAAQI) for
objective assessment and by a panel of people with hearing loss for subjective
evaluation.