Subjective and objective acoustic performance ranking of heavy and light weight walls

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This study presents a comparison between heavyweight and lightweight walls, in terms of perceived loudness of pink noise transmitted through 10 different walls. The objective is to investigate whether the single number descriptor RA,50–5000 adequately reflects the subjective perception of the acoustic performance of a wall and if the sound reduction index spectral behaviour affects the subjective rating. To perform the experiment, a Matlab® based digital tool was developed and a pairwise comparison listening test was performed in laboratory conditions with thirty three subjects. The sound samples consisted of only one stimulus – pink noise-, filtered by the sound reduction index spectrum of 5 heavy weight walls and 5 corresponding lightweight walls with the same RA,50–5000 but different Rw.The results were analysed and used to rank the walls from best to worst according to the perceived loudness of the sound samples. It has been shown that lightweight walls are better ranked than heavy walls, not only when compared to those with the same RA,50–5000, but in some cases also when the RA,50–5000 of the heavy wall is higher than the RA,50–5000 of the lightweight one. Furthermore, the ranking obtained from the listening test results matches very well with the ranking made according to Rw+C≈RA,100–3150.