Business environment

IEC TC 29’s technical work plays a vital role in underpinning large areas of social, environmental, medical diagnostic and rehabilitation applications, where the accurate production and/or measurement of sound is needed. Electroacoustical instrumentation and devices are therefore required by a very diverse range of users.

The declaration and verification of noise emission values for all kinds of machinery, consumer and domestic products, as presently required by many national or regional regulations, presupposes the use of uniformly specified and sophisticated sound measuring instrumentation with well-defined tolerances.

For the control of noise emission there is a growing need for instrumentation for the measurement and analysis of noise exposure in the workplace as well as in residential areas, and within the music and entertainment sectors. The available instruments and measuring methods still represent a high degree of simplification compared to the human perception of noise and to the effect on our hearing. However, current instrumentation provides a consistent means of measurement, which allows preventative action to be taken where appropriate based on the best available data.

Regulation and law on acoustical instrumentation differs widely from country to country. For example, in some countries pattern evaluation of new models of instrument against the international standard is required before the device can be sold, and regular testing of individual specimens is also required by law. In other countries this is not the case, and it is up to the user to follow good measurement practice. Hence the aim of IEC TC 29 is also to encourage testing in countries where it is not mandated by use of the same agreed international specified test methods within all countries, ensuring consistency and cost-effective testing across world markets.

In terms of worldwide market this varies considerably for the different instruments within the scope of the Committee’s remit, and as the number of key manufacturers in some areas is quite small, data on sales is often not available for commercial reasons. However, as examples some 8 million hearing aids are manufactured worldwide each year, and it is known that in some countries lost productivity due to noise can equate to up to approximately 2% of GDP.