High-pitched soprano singing sacrifices intelligibility for audibility

Evidence

The time function of perceived loudness is given on the top curve. It is strongly smoothed, but shows single syllables with relatively clear separation. It becomes clear from this curve that peak loudness, normally assumed to be perceived loudness, is produced by the vowels in speech. Consonants and plosives are very important for understanding, and are clearly visible in the specific loudness versus critical-band rate versus time patterns; their contribution to the total loudness, however, is almost negligible. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1307 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Customers walking out of movies have brought another matter to the fore: excessive loudness and/or distortion. In response, cinema operators are turning down the volume, and the cinematic art and speech intelligibility both suffer. — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1359 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Vowels dominate perceived loudness while consonants carry intelligibility — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1307; Orchestral accompaniment masks the voice’s fine spectral detail in recordings; Operators lowering volume to fix loudness harms speech intelligibility — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1359 (+5 more)

Related

• Operators lowering volume to fix loudness harms speech intelligibility (similarity 0.86)
• Turning down cinema volume to reduce loudness harms dialog intelligibility. (similarity 0.85)
• High-pitched soprano singing is unintelligible because harmonics are too sparse for formants (similarity 0.84)
• Vowels dominate perceived loudness while consonants carry intelligibility (similarity 0.84)
• Formant tracking to harmonics boosts loudness, not intelligibility, in soprano singing (similarity 0.83)
• Sopranos retune formants to match harmonics to boost loudness, not intelligibility (similarity 0.82)
• Fundamental frequency differences between voices improve speech intelligibility (similarity 0.80)
• Professional opera singers boost output in the 2.5 to 4 kHz range (similarity 0.79)
• Direct sound carries signal information uncontaminated and governs speech intelligibility (similarity 0.79)
• Linguistic context lets listeners understand speech at lower acoustic intelligibility (similarity 0.78)
• Nonsense-syllable tests measure intelligibility by stripping away language-level prediction (similarity 0.78)
• Orchestral accompaniment masks the voice’s fine spectral detail in recordings (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Vowels dominate perceived loudness while consonants carry intelligibility #qualifies (0.82) — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1307
• Professional opera singers boost output in the 2.5 to 4 kHz range #qualifies (0.80)
• Operators lowering volume to fix loudness harms speech intelligibility #corroborates (0.78) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1359
• Orchestral accompaniment masks the voice’s fine spectral detail in recordings #expands (0.75)
• Direct sound carries signal information uncontaminated and governs speech intelligibility #expands (0.75)
• Fundamental frequency differences between voices improve speech intelligibility #corroborates (0.72) — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 1313