The equivalent rectangular bandwidth or ERB is a measure used in psychoacoustics, which gives an approximation to the bandwidths of the filters in human hearing, using the unrealistic but convenient simplification of modeling the filters as rectangular band-pass filters, or band-stop filters, like in tailor-made notched music training (TMNMT).
Approximations
For moderate sound levels and young listeners, suggest that the bandwidth of human auditory filters can be approximated by the polynomial equation:
where is the center frequency of the filter, in kHz, and is the bandwidth of the filter in Hz. The approximation is based on the results of a number of published simultaneous masking experiments and is valid from 0.1–.
- 14678.49
</math>
where f is in Hz.
Using the linear approximation () for ERB(f) yields:
:<math>
\mathrm{ERBS}(f) = 21.4 \cdot \log_{10}(1 + 4.37 \cdot f)
</math>
where f is in kHz.
See also
- Critical bands
- Bark scale
References
External links
- Auditory Scales by Giampiero Salvi: shows comparison between Bark, Mel, and ERB scales