• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.661-665
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• 2006

This study investigates objective and subjective evaluations of refrigerator noise. To describe the fluctuations like a click, a rapid increase of sound level, a change of pitch, a transition into the stationary and ending phase, the psychoacoustical and autocorrelation function(ACF) parameters have been employed. First, subjective evaluation of the noisiness of 24 kinds of refrigerators was conducted. Then, the relationship between objective measures of the refrigerator noise on perceived noisiness was examined with multiple regression analyses. Sound Quality Indices using the psychoacoustical and ACF parameters were also developed. The important psychoacoustical parameters for evaluating noisiness are loudness and roughness of stationary phase. The relationship between the noisiness and the ACF parameters shows that sound energy ${\Phi}(0)$ and its fluctuations are important. Also, refrigerator sounds that had a fluctuation of pitch were rated as more annoying. The fluctuation of pitch is expressed by ${\tau}_1\;and\;{\Phi}_1$ defined by the delay time and the amplitude of the first peak of the ACF.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.1442-1445
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• 2007

Just noticeable differences (jnds) of autocorrelation function (ACF) parameters - Phi (0), Tau 1 and Phi 1 - of household refrigerator noise were investigated by psychoacoustical analyses. Phi (0) of five refrigerators' noise was changed with equal (${\pm}$) interval level of 0.5-1.0 dB up to five intervals by manipulating sound pressure level of the noise. Tau 1 and Phi 1 were varied with equal (${\pm}$) interval of around 0.10 ms and 0.02, respectively. Pitch shifting and strengthen methods were applied for the Tau 1 and Phi 1 variations. As results of subjective evaluations, about 2.0 dB was shown as jnd of Phi (0). The values of 0.30 ms and 0.06 were found as jnds of Tau 1 and Phi 1, respectively. The jnd results of each ACF parameter can be applied to explain substantial amount of sound quality (SQ) enhancement in the SQ prediction indices which were proposed in the authors' previous study [Sato et al. (2007) J. Acoust. Soc. Am.].

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.16 no.8 s.113
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• pp.797-805
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• 2006

The sound quality characteristics of refrigerator noise in an anechoic chamber and in a real living environment for 30 models of refrigerators were investigated. Subjective evaluation experiments were conducted to determine subjective tolerance level for refrigerator noise. Refrigerator noise was played from a loudspeaker at the position normally occupied by a refrigerator in a real living environment. A nine-point scale was used to measure subjective satisfaction of the sound pressure levels for refrigerator noise. Point 3 on the scale corresponded to a sound pressure level of about 30 dB(A). Seventy percent of the participants were satisfied with this level of refrigerator noise. A semantic differential test was also conducted to evaluate the sound quality of refrigerator noise. From the results of correlation and multiple regression analyses on the psychoacoustical parameters and subjective evaluations of 30 refrigerators, sound quality indices which predict the subjective rating score were proposed.