Reproducibility of Voice Parameters: The Effect of Room Acoustics and Microphones.
Pasquale Bottalico, Juliana Codino, Lady Catherine Cantor-Cutiva and 7 others
PMID 30471944WHAT IT FOUND
Room acoustics changed voice scores more than microphones did.
Jitter and CPPS were least affected. A quiet, low-reverberation room matters most when comparing voice scores over time.
Key findings
01Room acoustics affected the repeatability of voice measurements more than microphone type did.
02Jitter and CPPS were the voice parameters least affected by differences in microphone and room acoustics.
03The AKG microphone and Room2 gave measurements closest to the reference sound booth and reference microphone.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The speakers had normal voice quality, so the study does not show how room acoustics and microphones affect measurements in patients with voice disorders. The study used only six microphones and three clinical rooms, so it does not cover the full range of equipment and spaces used in clinics. The authors did not resolve how mouth-to-microphone distance affects the measurements. The authors state that the clinical significance of the observed differences is not known, especially when a speaker is close to a cut-off value. The measurements were made on replayed speech samples through a simulator, not on live patients in the clinic.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the reported differences as evidence that a patient's voice improved or worsened. The study used replayed samples from speakers with normal voice quality, and the authors say the clinical significance of the differences is not resolved.