Small revolution, our Image and Sound laboratories merge to become one!

To test the products that pass through the hands of our journalists, Digital relies on its various laboratories. Coming from a long tradition born from the creation of the site 18 years ago, our laboratories help us to develop protocols that allow us to offer the most serious and objective tests possible.

The Image and Sound labs merge

After a visit to the Maison lab and the Photo lab, let’s discover the laboratory dedicated to image and sound. More than a cosmetic overhaul, it has undergone a profound evolution in its design, with a paradigm shift as a result.

Indeed, if the Home and Photo labs have benefited from major advances with greater reliability, modularity and practicality while preparing for the future, they do not fundamentally change the way in which products are tested.

Previously, image and sound were processed in two separate laboratories, each dedicated to its chosen field. If the original idea had its charm, and responded to the desire to create a showcase for these two disciplines, we are coming back to this particular point by merging the two laboratories.

A listening and working room

Two factors motivated this decision. On the one hand, certain types of products evolve astride several categories, such as televisions, whose performance we measure both in terms of image and audio.

Our new laboratory thus benefits from more space. It allows simultaneous testing of several different types of products such as televisions, video projectors or monitors. The larger setback is more suited to high-end projectors, while darker wall hues work better too.

On the audio side, the space also lends itself to a use closer to a conventional listening room, even if the total surface area of ​​the lab takes us away from the surface area of ​​the average living room. Speakers, sound bars, subwoofers or Bluetooth speakers will thus go through the Image & Sound lab for a perceptual, ergonomic analysis or to evaluate the user experience.

A semi-anechoic chamber… to be discovered a little later

On the other hand, we were looking to improve our audio measurements. In the previous configuration imagined in 2016, the Sound lab had also been designed to accommodate a work desk and our various measuring tools. If everything worked well, a certain number of improvements could be imagined to gain in efficiency and reliability.

To achieve this, we have chosen to separate the workspace and the listening space from the one where we perform the measurements. We have thus equipped ourselves with a remote test chamber of the semi-anechoic type. Made to measure for Digital, the anechoic chamber accommodates products that require their audio part to be tested. The equipment controlling the measurements is now located in the common Image & Sound lab in order to avoid disturbing the measurements.

Journalistic work based on our lab measurements

This new investment is surely the largest ever made since the creation of the Digital with the aim of providing tests of ever higher quality. As our history touches on the two decades, this new equipment shows how much our desire to constantly push the tests further thanks to our laboratories constitutes the very identity of the Digital.

Obviously, our semi-anechoic chamber alone deserves a dedicated article to better understand how it works. While waiting for its publication, visits to the Home lab and the Photo lab remain available.