Comments on “A field survey on the annoyance caused by sounds from large firearms and road traffic” [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104 , 2890–2902 (1998)]

Buchta and Vos [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 104, 2890–2902 (1998)] have recently analyzed one set of blast-sound attitudinal survey data. From this survey, they conclude that annoyance increases less rapidly with level for high-energy impulsive sounds than it does for conventional sounds like road traffic noise, a result that is at odds with a significant number of research results. This paper discusses the analysis by Buchta and Vos and points to several areas in their analysis that might cause their results to depart from the results found by others. Specifically, it appears that the communities in their study exhibit abnormally high levels of annoyance to noise. Also, the great majority of the data that they analyze are below the threshold at which people in the community will notice these sounds. These factors may account for the results found.