The Human Perspective
What does a vehicle sound like to the people sitting inside it? How intelligible is a conversation when wind, traffic noise or other voices are added? And when does a technically faultless noise become a sound that conveys safety, quality or trust?
Measurements with a single microphone can answer such questions only in part, because they capture sound at one particular location. Human hearing works differently: it is spatial, direction-dependent and always influenced by the torso, head, and pinnae, and shaped by the situation and expectations. There is therefore one crucial question between a measured value and an auditory impression: How can we capture what actually reaches the listener?
This is the question that Klaus Genuit explored in the early 1980s while studying at RWTH Aachen University. He was looking for a way to record vehicle sounds so that technical analysis could be related to human hearing. In collaboration with Daimler-Benz, this work led to an innovative artificial-head measurement system for sound diagnostics.
In 1982, the HMS I became the first calibratable artificial-head measurement system to enter the market. Just four years later, Klaus Genuit founded HEAD acoustics GmbH. In doing so, he turned a scientific question into the foundation of a globally active company, and the artificial head became the starting point for an ever-growing range of methods for capturing, evaluating and shaping human perception. Psychoacoustic analyses have always been an essential component – because purely physical metrics tell only half the story.
Today, HEAD acoustics works in sound and vibration, speech and audio quality, virtual development processes and soundscapes. Applications range from vehicles, smartphones, and hearing aids to cities, workplaces, and robotics. The technologies are changing fundamentally, but the benchmark remains the same: what matters is not merely what an instrument records, but what people perceive.
Four Decades of Human-Centered Measurement Technology
Customer Queries Become New Solutions
Many developments at HEAD acoustics begin not with a specification for a new standard product, but with a specific real-world question. Sales engineers provide the link between customer requirements and product management. Individual measurement tasks give rise to customized systems and methods – and occasionally to solutions that later become standard products.
This results, among other things, in flexible measurement solutions for wind tunnels, a movable sound-power hemisphere, and automated end-of-line tests. The measurement technology covers a wide range of measurement tasks. SQuadriga III and SQope combine numerous functions into compact devices for on-site use. HEADlab II is designed for both stationary and mobile applications and, as a scalable system, measures multiple physical quantities simultaneously. In the future, HEADnodes will expand these capabilities with flexible, wirelessly distributed measurement points.
Close customer relationships are therefore not merely part of sales; they are also an enormously important development principle. After all, understanding what people hear also requires an understanding of the conditions under which products are used, tested and refined.
Perception becomes a development tool
Psychoacoustics describes not only how loud a sound is, but also how people experience it. Metrics such as tonality, roughness, sharpness, and spatial impression help explain why sound events with similar physical values can sound different. HEAD acoustics combines such perceptual metrics with technical measurement data, allowing auditory impressions to be evaluated realistically and reproducibly.
In product development, this approach is moving steadily further upstream. Measurement, simulation, and virtual development work in concert, allowing acoustic properties to be investigated and made audible long before a complete physical prototype is available. Real measurement data and simulation models can be analyzed together. This shortens development cycles, reduces the resources required for prototypes, and makes it possible to treat sound quality as a design objective from an early stage.
Operating concepts, automation and software functions follow the same idea. Users should not have to contend with growing technical complexity. Platforms are therefore adapted to new test procedures and development environments: their capabilities expand while measurements become easier to prepare, safer to perform and more efficient to evaluate.
Where perception will make the difference tomorrow
The next generation of technical products will interact more closely wth people – and must therefore understand them better. Over-the-counter hearing solutions make hearing support more accessible. Advanced active noise cancellation changes which parts of an environment remain audible. Spatial reproduction can make communication more natural and media experiences more immersive. In all these applications, the individual experience is decisive.
Partially autonomous driving, smart glasses, digital assistants and humanoid robots present similar challenges. Speech systems must work reliably even when users, devices and sound sources are moving. Powertrains generate noise and vibration; warning signals must be clear and unambiguous; and products must not only function, but also inspire trust. At the same time, health-related, individual and cultural factors influence how people assess these systems.
Artificial intelligence can help evaluate large volumes of measurement data, support development workflows and enable new product functions. Its value, however, is not determined by the technology alone. What matters is whether it answers development questions more quickly, reliably and in the interests of users. This requires close customer relationships, attentive listening and the ability to identify new requirements at an early stage.
The scope of acoustics will also continue to broaden: it encompasses not only vehicles and devices, but also schools, cities, offices, restaurants and hospitals. Soundscape methods systematically incorporate people's perception into the study of an environment. HEAD acoustics contributes to the development of the relevant standards, whose applications range from intelligible warning signals and workplaces that support concentration to the deliberate design of product sounds and urban spaces.
Forty years of experience for tomorrow's challenges
Technology changes. People remain the benchmark.
In 1986, a research question became a company. Forty years later, HEAD acoustics works around the world to understand sound, vibration, speech and audio from the human perspective. Artificial-head technology has evolved into a comprehensive perception-based approach that combines measurement, analysis and simulation and supports more reliable technical decisions.
Four decades of company history have been shaped by many people. We thank all former and current employees whose expertise, ideas and commitment have shaped HEAD acoustics and continue to do so today. Reinhard Scholz guided the company's commercial development for many years and made a major contribution to its stability and growth. Dr.-Ing. H. W. Gierlich established the telecommunications business unit, advanced its technical development and led it for many years. Both deserve special thanks for their achievements and many years of leadership. Customers and scientific partners are also part of this story. Their challenges, experience, and ideas inform technologies, methods, and standards that are now used in numerous industries.
The challenges ahead will bring technology and human perception even closer together. Sound and vibration influence whether people understand warnings, can follow conversations, perceive products as high-quality, or feel comfortable in an environment. HEAD acoustics will continue its work to make these effects measurable and incorporate them early in the development process.
The question from the company's early years will accompany HEAD acoustics into the future: What actually reaches the listener? Every good answer can help make products and technology safer, easier to understand, and more conducive to a good quality of life.
40 Years of HEAD acoustics. Always aHEAD.
A Brief History of the Company
In 1986, Klaus Genuit founded HEAD acoustics GmbH. Scientific publications, technical conferences, and participation in DIN and ISO committees accompanied the company’s development and firmly established its methods within the international professional community from an early stage. Marketing efforts in the U.S. began as early as the year the company was founded, followed by Japan in 1987.
Reinhard Scholz took over as commercial managing director in 1992 and, together with Klaus Genuit, laid the economic and organizational groundwork for further growth. Hans Wilhelm Gierlich, who had been with the company since 1989, built up the telecommunications division, has led it since 1999, and has served as its managing director since 2014.
With the establishment of its first subsidiary in the U.S. in 1999, the company began building its own international network. This was followed by locations in France (2001), Japan (2002), the United Kingdom (2015), South Korea (2016), China (2017), Italy (2018), and India (2022). These locations bring consulting, sales, support, and engineering closer to the customers’ development and production sites.
In 2008, Klaus Genuit founded the HEAD-Genuit Foundation. Among other things, the foundation supports endowed professorships, postdoctoral projects, and doctoral theses on measurement and evaluation methods for sound and vibrations, and it connects scientific research with industrial and societal issues.
Following the departure of Reinhard Scholz from the commercial management team, Stephan Noth assumes responsibility for finance, human resources, production, and central corporate functions. In 2023, Hans Wilhelm Gierlich retires after 34 years at HEAD acoustics. Anne Geller-Gravez will assume the newly created executive position for sales and marketing, while Matthias Wegerhoff will take on responsibility for development, research, and engineering services. Both are internal promotions. The transition thus represents both continuity and an organization that is orienting itself toward new markets, technologies, and ways of working.