More compression channels reduce spectral contrast and vowel recognition

Evidence

Paradoxically, electronic volume compression does not improve intelligibility; in many cases it makes it worse, because it can distort the syllabic amplitude variations that help us understand words. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2492 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Sonograms visually expose vowel formants as enhanced frequency bands; Increasing spectral contrast enhancement worsens cochlear implant performance.; Spectral contrast coding can be enhanced by attenuating valleys while leaving peaks fixed — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1831 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Separate compression channels for peak and valley reduce spectral contrast #expands (0.95)
• Volume compression worsens speech intelligibility by flattening syllabic amplitude cues #expands (0.90) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2492
• Wide dynamic range compression degrades perception of speech temporal cues like stop consonants #expands (0.85)
• Within-speech forward masking hampers consonant identification for hearing-impaired listeners #expands (0.72)