July Meeting Notice

July 2004 Meeting Notice

 Subject:Test methods and safety of communications headsets
 Speakers:Osman Isvan, Allen Woo
 Place: Plantronics, 345 Encinal Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
 Time and Date: July 27th, 7:30 PM (refreshments at 7:00 PM)

 

This presentation is an introduction to special techniques for measuring acoustic parameters of headphones and headset microphones. The focus will be on the types of ear simulators and their proper use.  The choice of an appropriate ear simulator is critical because the presence of the user's ear alters the sound field of the headphone and the presence of the headphone alters the Head Related Transfer Function. Conversions between free field and diffuse field sound pressure and sound pressure referred to common reference points such as ear Drum Reference Point (DRP) and Ear ReferencePoint (ERP) will be discussed.
Inappropriate use of headsets can lead to hearing damage from excessive acoustic exposure. Two elements contribute to assuring acoustic safety: Oneis to determine the maximum safe acoustic output; the second is to design atest method for measuring the maximum acoustic output of a headset. These elements are governed by various national and international standards. The latest activities of these organizations will be presented.
Osman Isvan has worked in the audio industry for 20 years. His focus is the translation between sound fields and audio signals. For the last 4 years he has been an acoustics engineer designing wired and wireless communications headsets at Plantronics. Prior to that, he worked in R&D teams at Bose Corporation and Gibson Guitar, specializing on transducer design and sound system optimization. He holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University. He has 3 patents issued and several patents pending.
Allen Woo started his audio and acoustics career in the late '80s. He holds a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from university of Utah. He co-developed the first noise exposure measurement system for headset applications for OSHA in 1989.  Allen started as an acoustic design engineer at Plantronics in 1990 and was promoted to principal engineer in 2001. Currently,  he is an active member of various industry standard committees, including IEEE, ITU-T, TIA, ETSI, ANSI, ISO, IEC. His area of interests are acoustic measurement and safety of telecommunication terminals.

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