meluvälin

Meluväli is a Finnish term that roughly translates to “noise interval” or “noise range.” The word is formed from melu meaning noise and väli meaning interval or range. In Finnish technical usage the expression is context-dependent and does not have a single universally fixed definition.

The term appears mainly in acoustics, environmental noise assessment, and signal processing. In these contexts meluväli can refer to the portion of the frequency spectrum, or a range of sound levels, that is classified as noise for a given measurement or analysis. It may also describe the band or range of times, frequencies, or amplitudes considered irrelevant or background noise in a particular study or device.

Because standards and regulations differ between countries and disciplines, the precise meaning of meluväli is determined by the applicable guideline or project requirements. Practitioners define the meluväli according to measurement bandwidth, weighting filters, and time-averaging methods used in their analysis. For example, a room acoustics or environmental noise assessment might specify a particular meluväli that separates background noise from the signal of interest, while a device-level analysis might fix a meluväli for noise-floor evaluation.

See also: environmental noise, signal-to-noise ratio, noise floor, bandwidth.