Acoustics Write up

Section 3 The mechanisms of human hearing

The human ear:
The human ear has a complex way of perceiving sound; we are
more sensitive to High mid frequencies this means that we hear
then louder than we would hear lower frequencies.

Above you can see an image of the structure of the human ear.
The ear consists of three vital parts; these are the outer ear, the
middle ear and the inner ear. Each part of the ear serves an
individual purpose in the task of working and processing sound. The
outer ear serves to gather and route sound to the middle ear. The
middle ears main purpose is to change the energy of a sound wave
into the inner vibrations of the bone structure of the middle ear and
finally change those vibrations into a compressional wave in the
inner ear. The inner ear is used to change the energy of a
compressional wave within the inner ear fluid into nerve impulses
that can be transmitted to the brain.

The outer ear consists of an earflap and an approximately 2cm long

ear canal. The earflap gives safety for the middle ear. This means
that the eardrum is then protected from being damaged. The outer
ear also channels sound waves that reach the ear through the ear
canal to the eardrum of the middle ear. Because of the length of the
ear canal, it is able to amplify sounds with frequencies around about
3000Hz. As sound moves through the outer ear, the sound is still in
the form of a pressure wave, with a broken pattern of high and low
pressure regions. Its not until the sound reaches the eardrum at the
crossing point of the outer and middle ear that the energy of the
mechanical wave becomes changed into vibrations of the inner
bone structure of the ear.
The middle ear is an air-filled hollow space that consists of an
eardrum and three tiny, organized bones- the hammer, anvil and
stirrup. The eardrum is a very tough and firmly
stretched membrane that vibrates as the arriving
pressure waves reach it. Compression forces the
eardrum outward, therefore vibrating the eardrum at
the same frequency of the sound wave. Being joined to
the hammer, the movements of the eardrum will set
the hammer, anvil and stirrup into action at the same
frequency of the sound wave. The stirrup is joined to
the inner ear therefore the vibrations of the stirrup are
sent to the fluid of the inner ear and make a
compression wave in the fluid. The three tiny bones of
the middle ear act as levers to increase the vibrations
of the sound wave. Due to a automatic advantage, the
displacements of the stirrup are greater than that of
the hammer. In addition, since the pressure wave
striking the large area of the eardrum is concentrated into the
smaller area of the stirrup is nearly 15 times larger than the
eardrum. This feature enhances our talent of hearing the faintest of
sounds.

The inner ear consists of a cochlea, the semicircular canals, and the
auditory nerve. The cochlea and the semicircular canals are filled
with a water-like fluid. The fluid and nerve cells of the semicircular
canals dont provide a role in the task of hearing; they only serve as
accelerometers for finding increased actions and
back up in the task of maintaining balance. The
cochlea is an organ that would stretch to
approximately 3 cm. In addition to being filled
with fluid, the inner surface of the cochlea has
over 20 000 hair-like nerve cells inside and these
perform one of the most important roles in our
capability to hear. These nerve cells change in
length by tiny amounts; they also have different
degrees of resilience to the fluid that passes
over them. As a compressional wave moves from
the crossing point between the hammer of the
middle ear and the oval window of the inner ear
through the cochlea, the small nerve cells will be
set in motion. Each hair cell has a normal
sensitivity to a precise frequency of vibration.
When the frequency of the compressional wave
is equal to the natural frequency of the nerve
cell, that nerve cell will vibrate with larger
amplitude of vibration. This bigger vibrational
amplitude tempts the cell to let go of an electrical impulse that
passes along the auditory nerve towards the brain. In a course that
is not clearly understood, the brain is able to understand the
qualities of the sound upon reception of these electric nerve
impulses.

The limits of hearing

The smallest audible sound is a reference point and we call this the
threshold of hearing. The loudest thing we can hear, without
tearing or damaging the eardrum is called the threshold of pain.
The threshold of pain is 1,000,000,000,000 times greater than the
threshold of hearing. Ten times the intensity is perceived as twice
as loud. For example a busy restaurant has ten times the intensity
levels of a violin playing on its own, but it loudness is only doubled.
Decibels were used at first to measure the intensity of energy and
power along telephone lines. Now the decibel is used to measure
sound level. The unit used when referring to decibels is dB. The
human ear is very sensitive; they can hear everything from your
fingertip brushing lightly against your skin to a jet engine. In terms

of power, the sound of the jet engine is about 1,000,000,000,000

times more powerful than the smallest perceptible sound. On the
decibel scale the smallest perceptible sound is 0dB, a sound ten
times more powerful is 10dB.

Earlier in this article I talked about the cocktail party effect and
Beats
Haas effect- The Haas Effect is described by Helmut Haas as the
talent of our ears to pinpoint sounds coming from anywhere around
us.
Masking- Masking is the process by which the detection threshold of
a sound is increased by the presence of another sound. The amount
of masking is described as the increase in the detection threshold of
a sound due to the presence of a masker sound.
Health and safety

Workplace laws-The control of noise at Work Regulations 2005 was

made for all industry sectors in Great Britain on 6th April 2006. The
point of the noise regulations is to make sure that workers hearing
is sheltered from extreme noise at their place of work, which could
cause them to lose their hearing or to suffer from tinnitus, which is a
permanent ringing in the ears.
The level at which employers must provide hearing fortification and
hearing protection zones is now 85 decibels (for a daily or weekly
exposure) and the level at which employers must measure the risk
to workers health and provide them with information and education
is now 80 decibels. There is also an contact limit value of 87
decibels taking account of any lessening in contact provided by
hearing fortification, which if exceeded workers must not be
exposed.
Methods for hearing protection:

Headphones
Ear plugs

Mixing/studio rules:

Dont eat or drink near any recording equipment, if you need

to have a drink try and have water as this doesnt effect
electrical equipment as much as soft drinks do, this is because
the sugar in soft drinks makes the cables all sticky and harder
to fix, than if water was silt on them.
Make sure that the speakers are off when your not using them,
this is because they can sometimes burst when the computer
is turned on when they are still on.
Make sure you have adaptable clothing on because studios
can be either too hot or too cold.