Follow the link below to a report detailing the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) validation of our Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) system.
Note: Previously our REATPro software was known as REATMaster. The core function hastn’t changed, but REATPro has many extra features that make it even more user friendly.
Abstract:
“The American National Standard Methods for Measuring the Real-Ear Attenuation of Hearing Protectors (ANSI S12.6-2008) requires a Békésy procedure for testing occluded and unoccluded thresholds. Since 2002, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has used the custom-designed HPDLab software operating Tucker-Davis Technologies System 3 hardware. ViAcoustics, Nelson Acoustics, NASA, and NIOSH researchers recently developed REATMaster which runs on National Instruments hardware in the LabVIEW environment. Ten subjects were trained by the experimenter on how to fit a passive earmuff and were qualified according to the requirements of ANSI S12.6-2008. The laboratory was configured such that diffuse sound field thresholds were tested with either the HPDLab or REATmaster hardware by flipping a toggle switch. The earmuff was not touched or re-positioned between test trials with the two different hardware/software systems. The test sequence for the order of open and occluded measurements was counterbalanced across occluded conditions and hardware system. Results from this testing were used to validate the REATMaster system for its ability to produce accurate threshold data. Preliminary results indicate no significant differences between the two systems.”
See the full report here.
