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This study is to establish new evaluation scales of sound quality which is more suitable for the human sense of hearing than the conventional evaluation scales such as A-weighted sound-pressure level. The authors focus on fan noise and have investigated the meaning space of its sound quality by hearing tests and factor analyses. The hearing tests were performed using semantic differential (SD) method and their test results were analyzed to extract dominant factors of the fan noise sound quality. The factor analyses, influence of noise level and 1/3 octave band level on sound quality of fan noise were also investigated. It was found that the sound quality of fan noise had two major factors; ‘‘offensive’’ and ‘‘booming-powerful’’ factors. The evaluation of hearing test using a paired comparison method was performed in order to investigate the correlation of these two factors with physical quantities that represent noise level and quality such as A-weighted sound pressure level and loudness level. Analysis of hearing tests results revealed that ‘‘offensive’’ factor has positive correlation with the physical quantities such as A-weighted sound pressure, but ‘‘booming’’ factor has negative correlation with them.

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