Subjective classification of footstep sound from different floor coverings

摘要

No standard method for the classification of floor coverings regarding the so-called drum sound exists today. Based on measurements of the psychoacoustic parameters loudness and sharpness and the physical parameter initial decay time, and findings from exhaustive listening tests, the so-called "footstep measure" is formulated in (1). Using a statistical model allowing ties in the evaluation of the listening tests a threshold parameter indicating the level of sensor perception is calculated. As a result the method does not only give the ranking of the floor coverings, but also an indication of the required difference in objective parameters to result in a certain amount of people preferring one solution to another.