Psychoacoustic Evaluation of Vehicle Sounds

The evaluation and design of vehicle noise is becoming increasingly important. Different sources contribute to the noise: the vehicle interior noise is composed of noise coming from, e.g., motor, gearing, tires, ancillary units and wind. The perception is often predicted by psychoacoustic parameters in order to reduce time-consuming listening tests. This paper gives an overview of important psychoacoustic parameters. The current state of standardization is briefly summarized and research results based on the hearing model of Sottek [1] are presented. Some examples of vehicle noise evaluation show that similar conclusions can be drawn reliably from calculated parameters as from the results of listening tests.