Mask and Respirator Intelligibility Comparison

December 6th, 2024
bio, covid-19, masks, tech
One of the downsides of wearing a mask or respirator is that it makes it hard for people to understand you. That there's stuff getting in the way of free air movement is kind of the point, but ideally it would be possible to let vibration through without net air movement. I recently saw that 3M had updated their respirator line to include an option for a speaking diaphragm, and wanted to test it out.

I compared four options:

I recorded myself on my MacBook with Audacity, reading the same paragraph in with each setup:

(wav).

(wav).

(wav).

(wav).

To me, the no-mask version is by far the clearest, but if I only heard the N95 version I probably wouldn't notice that anything was off. The two reusable respirators are the least intelligible by a good bit, and the speaking diaphragm helps a lot less than I'd hoped.

Here's a frequency plot (script, script):

Unfortunately, since I don't have a great sense of how important each frequency range is for understanding speech, I don't find this all that helpful. But maybe you do?

(One thing I do really like about the new version of 3M's reusable respirator, though, is the button for fit testing. You press the button and it closes off the filters, and if you're able to breath in then the mask is not sealed.)

Referenced in: Mini PAPR Review

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, mastodon, bluesky, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Elixir's Last Dance

On May 18th, the contra dance band Elixir had their last gig ever. The dance was packed: there were three hundred people. It was the only dance BIDA has ever done where they sold tickets. People flew from across the country just to hear Elixir play one la…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts June 5, 2025

Body Language For Trans People

When I first came out as trans, resources for trans people were full of advice about body language.

via Thing of Things June 2, 2025

Workshop House case study

Lauren Hoffman interviewed me about Workshop House and wrote this post about a community I’m working on building in DC.

via Home April 30, 2025

more     (via openring)