Speech clarity

Speech clarity concerns the quality of speech transfer to the listeners. In a reverberant room with disturbing background noise, it can be difficult to pick up speech. 

Unclear

 

 

Clear


 

Clarity. Room acoustic descriptors.

 

The sound that reaches the listener first is called direct sound. This is followed by early reflections. The early reflections that reach the listener within 50 ms are integrated with the direct sound and thus have a positive effect on speech clarity. The reflections that come later may be perceived as disturbing.

 
Clarity. Room acoustic descriptors.
 

The Clarity measurement (C50) compares the sound energy in early sound reflexes with those that arrive later. It is expressed in dB. A high value is positive for speech clarity.

Another measure of speech transfer is the Speech Transmisson Index (STI). When speech transmission is perfect, STI = 1. In a normal-sized classroom, STI should be greater than 0.75. In the case of poor speech transmission, variations in speech are perceived less well. Factors that impair speech transmission, thus contributing to a lower STI index are, for instance, background noise, long reverberation and echoes.

STI bad speech transmision

Bad speech transmision.

 
STI good speech transmission

Good speech transmision.

 
Perceived attribute Objective descriptor Designation Unit Explanation Standard

Speech clarity

Speech clarity

C50

dB

Measures the ration between early and late reflections. 

ISO 3382-1

Speech clarity

Speech Transmission Index

STI

Index (0-1)

Measures quality of speech transfer from speaker to listener.

IEC 60268-16