The ITU Radiocommunication Assembly considering a)that conventional objective measurement methods (e.g. for measuring signal-to-noise ratio and distortion) may no longer be adequate in assessing systems which use low bit-rate coding schemes or which employ analogue or digital signal processing;b)that low bit-rate coding schemes are rapidly being deployed both at intermediate audio quality levels, which is corresponding to be equivalent to or better than a good reception of FM or AM analogue broadcasting services, and in multichannel configurations;c)that not all implementations conforming to a specification or standard guarantee the best quality achievable within that specification or standard.