Perceived Loudness of Neighbour Sounds Heard Through Heavy and Light-Weight Walls with Equal <I>R</I><SUB>w</SUB> + <I>C</I><SUB>50</SUB><SUB>–</SUB><SUB>5000</SUB>

Abstract

SummaryThis 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 massspring-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.

Vibrometry Assessment of the External Thermal Composite Insulation Systems Influence on the Façade Airborne Sound Insulation †

“…When such leaking frequencies coincide with strong spectral components in the noise, then this can result in strong acoustic discomfort. From hearing research, it is well known that, although low frequencies are less audible than middle and high ones in the case of low or moderate sound levels, the dynamics of human ear becomes smaller towards deeper tones [39]. This means that small increases of barely audible low frequency sounds will be perceived as much larger increases.…”

“…The particular impact of noise from road, rail and air traffic is expressed in the spectrum adaptation terms C and C tr [20]. In some countries, spectrum adaptation terms are not considered, but the contribution of low frequencies is included by means of extended assessment range, i.e., from 50 to 5000 Hz [35][36][37][38][39]. In [13,40], the insulation of low frequency noise produced by traffic is considered by calculation of single number quantities R W + C tr or R W + C tr,50-5000 .…”

Characterization of New Sustainable Acoustic Solutions in a Reduced Sized Transmission Chamber

“…All of this together with the recent importance of acoustic comfort [29][30][31][32][33] has led researchers to search for tools that allow them to quickly, easily, and economically assess airborne sound insulation for the validation of new building solutions in the research and development stages.…”

Assessment of the airborne sound insulation from mobility vibration measurements; a hybrid experimental numerical approach

“…The increase in interest in low frequency sound insulation has stimulated research activities on two fronts. On one hand, questions on the importance of the low frequency part of the spectrum in people's subjective perception of sound insulation have been tackled by listening tests [2], aimed at designing single number quantities that include the frequency range below 100Hz [3,4]. In current standards the assessment of sound insulation in frequency range down to 50Hz is still optional [5].…”