January 22, 2018
Noise
Noise
Subjective perception of wind turbine noise – The stereo approach
Cooper, Steven; and Chan, Chris
Cooper, Steven; and Chan, Chris
The conduct of stereo measurements for both playback in high-quality headphones and in a hemi-anechoic room has been undertaken for a number of wind farms and other low-frequency noise sources as an expansion of the material previously presented at the Boston ASA meeting. The results of the additional monitoring, evaluation, and subjective analysis of this procedure are discussed and identifies the benefits of monitoring noise complaints and assessments of wind farm noise in stereo. The laboratory mono subjective system was used to reproduce the audio wave file obtained in a dwelling. The test signal, being inaudible, was presented as a pilot double blind provocation case control study to 9 test subjects who have been identified as being sensitized to wind turbine noise and low frequency pulsating industrial noise. All test subject could detect the operation of the inaudible test signal. The use of a stereo manikin to investigate detected inaudible ”hotspots” is discussed.
Figure 1: View of microphone set up
Figure 2: Manikin mic in ear and preamp on extension rods
Steven Edwin Cooper, Chris Chan
The Acoustic Group, Lilyfield, New South Wale, Australia
174th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
New Orleans, Louisiana, 4–8 December 2017
Download original document: “Subjective perception of wind turbine noise – The stereo approach [1]”
The evaluation of wind turbine noise impacting upon communities is generally related to external noise environments and has a problem with separating wind turbine noise from ambient noise (which includes the presence of wind) which is not normally the case for general environmental noise. Subjective testing of wind turbine noise to examine amplitude modulation and subjective loudness has tended to use large baffle speaker systems to produce the infrasound/low-frequency noise and one high-frequency speaker – all as a mono source. Comparison of mono and stereo recordings of audible wind turbine noise played back in a test chamber and a smaller hemi-anechoic space provides a distinct different perception of amplitude modulation of turbines. A similar exercise compares use of high-quality full-spectrum headphones with the two different sound files applied to just the ears is discussed.
Steven Edwin Cooper
The Acoustic Group, Lilyfield, New South Wale, Australia
173rd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America
Boston, Massachusetts, 25–29 June 2017
Download original document: “Subjective perception of wind turbine noise [2]”
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/subjective-perception-of-wind-turbine-noise-the-stereo-approach/
URLs in this post:
[1] Subjective perception of wind turbine noise – The stereo approach: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Cooper-Chan-stereo-perception.pdf
[2] Subjective perception of wind turbine noise: https://docs.wind-watch.org/Cooper-subjective-perception.pdf