White Paper: Is Your Fire Alarm Or MNS Effective

Clearly understanding a live or a recorded mass notification system (or voice alarm system) during a fire or a threatening situation is essential for the safety of a facility's occupants.

What if you were in a 20-floor high rise building and the mass notification system announced a chemical spill in the building? The alarm system specifically advised the contaminated area was on the south-side of the 7th floor and advised to evacuate the building by using the north-side stairwell. If this was not intelligible, or clearly communicated, than lives could be lost. Ensuring safety of individuals is a number one concern for building owners.

This document is intended as a primer to understand how speech intelligibility is measured and addresses the following: basic principles of sound and speech path, factors influencing the test, how and what to test when deploying STIPA testing, scales (or measurement results) to consider, what the standards recommend, and possible solutions to low test results.