Comments on K. D. Kryter’s paper, ’’Community annoyance from aircraft and ground vehicle noise’’

This paper presents a critique of K. D. Kryter’s paper, ’’Community Annoyance from Aircraft and Ground Vehicle Noise’’ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 72, xxx–xxx (1982) in which he purports to show that an earlier paper of Schultz, ’’Synthesis of social surveys on noise annoyance’’ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 64, 377–405 (1978), significantly underestimates the annoyance associated with aircraft noise, and underestimates that due to surface traffic noise. While the earlier Schultz paper may not be entirely correct, a careful study of Kryter’s new analysis suggests that his conclusions are considerably more dubious than he regards those of Schultz.