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Intercomparison Measurements of Room Acoustical Parameters and Measures for Speech Intelligibility in a Room with a Sound System

Intercomparison measurements of room acoustical parameters and speech intelligibility measures were performed in a 1500-m3 room containing a sound system. The parameters included the octave-band reverberation times T20 and T30 averaged over the entire room, the speech intelligibility indices STI, STI(mod), STI(male), STI(female), RASTI, and %ALcons, the frequency response in one-third-octave bands, and the room acoustical parameters EDT, C80, C50, D50, and Ts at various positions in accordance with ISO 3382. The measurements carried out by 15 participants from Switzerland were compared. As far as can be ascertained, two main factors appear to be responsible for the spread in results. On the one hand, the noise disturbances, at times quite strong, seemed to pose difficulties for the participants. Frequently too little attention was paid to achieving an adequate signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, for some measurements the results of certain participants diverged greatly from those of others, partly as a result of incorrect settings of the instruments. In the measurement analysis the standard deviations were compared to the perception thresholds. When the data from a few conspicuous participants were eliminated, the standard deviations were often within the region of the perception thresholds.

Authors: Eggenschwiler, Kurt; Machner, Rainer
Affiliations: EMPA Materials Science and Technology, Duebendorf, Switzerland; University of Applied Science Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany(See document for exact affiliation information.)
JAES Volume 53 Issue 3 pp. 193-204; March 2005 Import into BibTeX

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