[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Loudness of complex tones



Dear colleagues:

        I am just completing a small experiment that demonstrates that
lower-pitched piano tones are perceived as louder than higher-pitched tones
matched for peak rms sound level. (The opposite would be true for pure tones
in the same fundamental frequency range, below 1000 Hz.)
I suspect that is so because of the larger number of harmonics and energy
in a larger number of critical bands when the fundamental frequency is low
rather than high. I am not very up-to-date on the literature concerning
loudness perception and have encountered hardly any papers on the loudness
of complex tones, on realistic instrument tones in particular. Can anyone point
me in the right direction? Is my result obvious from what is known about
the loudness of complex harmonic tones? Has anyone predicted or shown that
such tones get louder as you lower their fundamental? Many thanks in advance.

        Bruno H. Repp
        Haskins Laboratories