Adding Hearing Defenders to NoiseTools

Before you start

Before you start, make sure that you have the data needed for the product or products that you want to add.

What you’ll need is the APV values at each frequency point and this information will be available either directly from the packaging of the product or from the manufacturer’s website.

Please note that the information you need is the APV.

An example of this would be as follows:

Freq (Hz) 63 125 250 500 1k 2k 4k 8k
Mf (dB) 34.4 34.2 35.6 36.6 37.1 37.1 46.5 43.9
sf (dB) 4.9 6.1 6.2 5.7 5.0 3.5 4.2 4.1
APV (dB) 29.5 28.1 29.4 30.9 32.1 33.6 42.3 39.7

Note that there is no data provided for the 31Hz and 16kHz bands. This is typical and it may be that the 63Hz band data is also not available, depending upon the product and the way that it was tested.

Ensure that you have this information available.

Step 1. Open NoiseTools

Open NoiseTools

Step 2. Open an existing measurement that contains octave band data

Open an existing measurement that contains octave band data. This allows the Hearing Defenders tab to appear on the right-hand side of the measurement display. 

Step 3. Open the hearing defender tab

Click the Hearing Defenders tab

Step 4. Open the Add Defender Option

Select one of the existing products and right-click.

From the options, choose Advanced and then choose Add

Step 5. Enter the data

Enter the information about the product into the appropriate boxes.

The numbers that go into the boxes at the bottom of the window are the APV values that you have gathered previously.

If you do not have data for a band, 31.5 for example, enter 999 in the box. Do not enter 0 and do not leave the box blank.

Step 6. Confirm that the new product is available.

When all of the information has been entered, click OK and go back to the hearing defender selection. 

Look for the new product that you have entered and check that it appears as expected.