Perceived Loudness of Neighbour Sounds Heard Through Heavy and Light-Weight Walls with Equal Rw + C50−5000

This article presents a perceptual comparison of the loudness of a large range of 64 different typical “living room” sounds transmitted through two different walls: (1) a light-weight wall, composed of gypsum boards mounted on metal “C” studs and (2) a heavy-weight wall, built out of lime sand bricks plastered on one side. The two walls had different (laboratory measured) sound insulation spectra, but their Rw + C50−5000 rating was the same: 52 dB. Compared to the heavy-weight wall, the mass-spring-mass-type light-weight wall had better sound insulation properties in the middle frequency range and worse at low frequencies below 100 Hz and above 3150 Hz. Listening subjects had to choose the loudest stimuli between a pair of sounds (as transmitted through the lightweight and the masonry wall) presented through headphones in random order with one repetition, following a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) procedure. Two sets of listening tests were conducted in this study, playing stimuli at realistic sound level and on artificially overall increased level. The listening experiments revealed significant differences in subjective assessment between the two types of acoustic insulation. The results also infer that the discussed single number rating does not adequately correspond with people’s perception.

Jaar van publicatie:2016

BOF-keylabel:ja

IOF-keylabel:ja

BOF-publication weight:0.1

CSS-citation score:2

Auteurs:International

Authors from:Higher Education

Toegankelijkheid:Open