Comparisons of jitter, shimmer, and signal-to-noise ratio from directly digitized versus taped voice samples

The purpose of this study was to compare jitter, shimmer, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) measures obtained from tape-recorded samples with the same measures made on directly digitized voice samples, with use of the CSpeech acoustic analysis program. Subjects included 30 young women who phonated the vowel /a/ at a comfortable pitch and loudness level. Voice samples were simultaneously recorded and digitized, and the resulting perturbation measures for the two conditions were compared. Results indicated that there were small but statistically significant differences between percent jitter, percent shimmer, and SNR calculated from taped samples compared with the same measures calculated from directly digitized samples. It was concluded that direct digitization for clinical measures of vocal perturbation was most desirable, but that taped samples could be used, if necessary, with some caution.