NNNA 1032

ACOUSTICS

Group 6 : Final Report

Written by : 1. Laila Azizah (A178744)

2. Nuriah Huda ‘Ilmi binti Mohammad (A183917)
3. Wahidah Maisarah binti Hazizi (A182922)
4. Wan Irdina Bilqis binti Mohd Nazri (A181635)
Program : Audiology
Lecturer’s Names : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cila Umat & Dr. Chong Foong Yen
1.0 Introduction

Sound is produced when an object vibrates, creating a pressure wave will cause particles in
the surrounding medium such as air, water, and solid to have vibrational motion. If a body is set
into vibratory motion, it must have mass and elasticity. Sound waves are described as
longitudinal wave motion which move in the same direction as propagation of disturbance. The
function of the filter is being introduced, which is the removal of the unwanted energy and
allowing the transmission of desired energy based on its signal frequency and filter
characteristics. The types of filter that are being used are high-pass filter, low-pass filter, and
band-pass filter. There are 4 physical parameters that have been focused on, which are amplitude,
frequency, duration and phase.

The objectives of this project are to understand about the pure tones and complex waves that
are used in clinical settings. Other than that, this project was held to understand the difference
between a spectrogram and a waveform. Last but not least, we also want to understand about the
effect of filtering on the sound waves.

2.0 Definition

Pure tones : Sound with sinusoidal waveform.

Complex waves : A combination of two or more sine waves.

Amplitude : The maximum displacement of a vibration or oscillation, measured from

the position of its equilibrium; strength or magnitude of vibration over
time.

Frequency : The rate of vibratory motion; the number of cycles completed per
second.

Period : The time taken for one complete oscillation.

Duration : The length of time that a wave lasts.

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Phase : The relationship between the position of the amplitude crests and troughs
of two waves.

Cutoff frequency : A frequency level above or below where the signal fails to pass.

High pass filter : Filter that passes signals with a frequency higher than the cutoff
frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies lower than the cutoff
frequency.

Low pass filter : Filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff
frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff
frequency.

Band pass filter : A filter that passes frequencies within a frequency range and attenuates
frequencies outside that frequency range.

3.0 Main content

3.1 Pure tones

We have generated three pure tones with frequency of 500 Hz, 1000 Hz and 2000 Hz. Each
pure tone was being set for 3 seconds with the starting phase at 0, 0.5 dB of maximum positive
amplitude, 0.5 dB of maximum negative amplitude and 1.0 dB of peak-to-peak amplitude. The
period for 500 Hz, 1000 Hz and 2000 Hz pure tones are 2 ms, 1 ms and 0.5 ms respectively. This
is due to the frequency is inversely proportional to period. The horizontal axis in spectrogram
indicates the time whereas the vertical axis indicates the frequency. The frequency of the stated
pure tones remains the same as it appears at the spectrogram. The spectrogram of each pure tone
shows the same colour and brightness because the amplitude of the pure tones are constant.

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3.2.1 Complex waves (Speech)

We have recorded a speech using PRAAT to analyze the waveform and spectrogram. Speech
is characterized as complex waves because it shows a combination of two or more sine waves.
The vowels that we used in the project are /a/ and /i/ and the consonants are /k/ , /s/ and /h/ .
Based on the result, the waveforms of /k/ , /s/ and /h/ are aperiodic, non-repeatable, and
unpredictable. The waveform of /a/ and /i/ sound are periodic and have constant waveform. The
/k/ sound belongs to a plosive sound where the sound is made by closing the mouth and then
releasing a burst of breath. The /s/ sound is similar to white noise. This is due to strong hissing
sound and it belongs to voiceless alveolar fricative which means it is pronounced with the tip or
blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge just behind the teeth. Lastly, the /h/ sound belongs
to voiceless glottal fricative which means the sound is made with the motion of vocal cords but is
not voiced. Based on the spectrogram, the /a/ sound has high F1 and low F2 while the /i/ sound
has low F1 and high F2.

In addition, there is an impulsive sound which is a sudden increase in amplitude in the

speech waveform. It has two parts of impulsive sound where it locates in between the /k/ sound
and the /a/ sound and in between the /s/ sound and the /i/ sound.

3.2.2 Complex waves (Non-speech)

A white noise which is a form of complex waves has been generated. According to the
result, the waveform of white noise shows an aperiodic wave due to the pattern that does not
repeat regularly and it is characterized by random pressure fluctuation. White noise displays an
equal intensity at different frequencies throughout the duration of 1 ms. The energy distribution
of white noise is the same through all frequencies in view of the spectrogram.

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3.3 Effects of filtering

In this project, we have stimulated three types of filter which are high pass filter, low pass
filter and band stop filter. Both speech and non-speech that we have generated have the same
value of cut off frequency. A high pass filter attenuates frequencies below a cutoff frequency
which is at 1000Hz, allowing higher frequencies to pass through the filter. The sound of speech
“kasih” becomes clearer as the noise on the low frequency is reduced. However, a low pass filter
attenuates frequencies above a cutoff frequency which is at 1000Hz, allowing lower frequencies
to pass through the filter. A band stop filter allows specific range of frequencies to not pass
through the output, while allowing lower and higher frequencies to pass with little attenuation. It
removes frequencies between the two cut off frequencies which are 1000Hz and 2000Hz while
passing frequencies outside the cut off frequencies. The sound that we obtained for the band stop
filter is out of range frequency from 1000Hz to 2000Hz.

4.0 Reflection and Conclusion

This project has run smoothly as all the group members gave the full commitment in order to
accomplish all the objectives and finish the project. More findings need to be done in order to
obtain correct information so that there are no misconceptions occur.

To conclude, we experienced discovering new softwares such as Audacity and PRAAT that
are essential in our audiology clinic. We also are able to describe the physical properties of pure
tones and some complex waves. Besides that, we are able to explain the differences between
spectrogram and waveform. Lastly, we accomplished to generate and identify the effects and
functions of filtering for every tone. We would like to learn further about the effects that can be
applied to different sounds such as echo and analyze more unique sounds.

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5.0 References

1. Benjamin W.Y. and Todd A.(2006). The effects of hearing loss on the contribution of
high- and low-frequency speech information to speech understanding. II. Sloping hearing
loss. J Acoust Soc Am, 119(3),1752-1763. doi: 10.1121/1.2161432. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2735822/

2. How are sounds viewed and analyzed? Discovery of Sound in the Sea. Retrieved from
https://dosits.org/science/measurement/how-are-sounds-viewed-and-analyzed/

3. Joy Victory (2020). Understanding high-frequency hearing loss. Healthy hearing. Retrieved
from
https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/52448-Understanding-high-frequency-hearing-loss

4. Steve (2013). High pass/ low pass/band pass/band cut filter. Audacity Forum. Retrieved
from /https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?t=70697

5. Understanding Spectrogram (2020). iZOTOPE. Retrieved from

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/understanding-spectrograms.html#:~:text=Waveform,i
n%20a%20signal%20over%20time.