User Guide

Plantronics Acoustic Safety White Paper

Draft #4

Plantronics Acoustic Safety

White Paper

INTERPRETING INDUSTRY STANDARDS FOR HEADSET USE

Telecom industry standards interpret “open ﬁeld” regulatory requirements for headset use. The

best-known standards are ITU-T P.360, UL 60950-1 and ETSI EG 202 518. These industry standards

deﬁne the test methods and noise limit requirements as they relate to US and EU regulations.

HEADSET TESTING EQUIPMENT AND METHODOLOGIES

Among the many noise sources that are encountered in the workplace, telephone headsets

is in a unique category. They generate sounds at or in the user’s ear rather than externally, as is

the case with “open ﬁeld” noise.

Through the years, few techniques were developed to measure noise exposure from headsets.

The noise level of a headset is measured on a head and torso simulator (HATS). HATS simulates

the human auditory system with synthetic soft pinna, ear canal and eardrum. The measurement

microphone in HATS measures the sound signal that would exist at a real persons’ eardrum

location, called the eardrum reference point, or DRP

For more information on reference point, refer to ITU-T P.58, “Head and torso simulator for telephonometry”.

Figure 2: A head and torso simulator (HATS). Photo courtesy of Brüel and Kjaer.