Noise Masking Narrowband

Narrowband masking noise is the sound that is used in audiological testing. It is a set of sounds that simulate what happens in real life. These sounds help mask other noise from the person during testing, making the testing procedure easier and more accurate.

During an audiometric study, the hearing threshold is checked using narrow-band masking noise. Acoustic headphones and a signal recording device work on this. The doctor puts the devices on the patient’s ears and alternately plays sounds of different origins, and the device records this. The doctor tells the person what sound he just heard, the patient answers what kind of sound it was. This is necessary in case the device detects any problems. The presence of defects can be determined by whether a person recognizes the entire range of sounds or misses some of them.

The device is called a pedant - a special device that constantly supplements the sound signal with tone signals of the desired wavelength range. This noise is called narrow because the frequency of the sound signal is relatively close to the frequency of the sound source. This is a very important parameter, since this frequency can completely destroy the further actions of the device. If a narrow frequency tone is too wide, sounds will start to get lost. If the narrow tone is too high, the patient will not be able to hear its background sound. For this reason, masking noise should be a sound vibration with a sufficiently low frequency - relative to how quickly a person hears. The better one hears, the wider the minimum spectrum should be.