A comparison of two methods for the evaluation of prominent discrete tones: Phase 3

This paper presents results of Phase 3 of the study of prominent discrete tones by the Inter Committee Working Group (ICWG) from Information and Technology Equipment (ITTE). Progress and earlier results were reported at INTER‐NOISE 99, the 139th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, and INTER‐NOISE 2000. Phase 3 is a round robin involving 40 signals (some from ITTE products and some artificial sounds), which were recorded and distributed to participants as .wav files. Each of several ITTE company laboratories determined the objective tone‐to‐noise ratios and prominence ratios of the signals and/or provided subjective ratings. The paper presents comparisons of the objective and subjective ratings from the different laboratories. The relative success of the two objective methods in predicting the subjective ratings is discussed, as are the underlying issues and recommendations of the task group.