User Guide

Plantronics Acoustic Safety White Paper

Draft #4

Plantronics Acoustic Safety

White Paper

III. Plantronics technology for acoustic safety

Since the company’s founding in 1961, Plantronics has been a strong leader, participant and

supporter of various global industry standards, particularly those pertaining to acoustic safety.

For example, Plantronics has:

• Led and drafted ITU-T P.360 and ETSI EG 202 518, and is currently revising ETSI EG 202 518

to include an anti-startle requirement and test method

• Helped create ISO 11904-1 and -2, IEC 62368-1, UL 60950-1 and UL 62368-1, and is

creating EN 50332-3

• Participated in the World Health Organization’s “Make Listening Safe” campaign

Plantronics has a rich history in designing and manufacturing telecommunications headsets at

the leading edge of listening comfort and safety. Plantronics products offer solutions that limit

impulse and continuous noise exposure, TWA daily noise exposure and PMP acoustic safety.

These products not only comply with acoustic safety regulations, but also surpass standards with

additional measures that bring greater acoustic comfort to the user, such as anti-acoustic startle.

Here are a few highlights of the many Plantronics’ innovations in acoustic safety and comfort:

SoundGuard technology delivers a virtually instantaneous attack time to remove impulse and long

duration disturbance noise levels that would exceed 118 dBA. Below is an example comparing the

effect a loud tone-like noise in a normal speech with and without SoundGuard technology. The

diagram shows the loud noise is clipped to below 118 dBA while the speech signals remain intact.

To ensure 100 percent compliance while considering safety margins, product variations and

measurement variations, the actual acoustic safety limits of most Plantronics headset products

that contain SoundGuard technology are well below 118 dBA.

Figure 3: Plantronics’ SoundGuard technology keeps speech signals intact while

limiting abrupt loud noises to below 118 dBA

118dB 118dB

Exceeding 118dB Sound Limited to 118dB

Normal

Speech

Normal

Speech

No Limiting Plantronics SoundGuard®