You may be interested in seeing how Figure 4.11 was created with a MATLAB program. The MATLAB program below is included with permission from its creator, Jeff Tacket. The program relies on data available is ISO 226. The data is given in a comment in the program. ISO is The International Organization for Standardization (www.iso.org).
figure;
[spl,freq_base] = iso226(10);
semilogx(freq_base,spl)
hold on;
for phon = 0:10:90
[spl,freq] = iso226(phon);%equal loudness data
plot(1000,phon,'.r');
text(1000,phon+3,num2str(phon));
plot(freq_base,spl);%equal loudness curve
end
axis([0 13000 0 140]);
grid on % draw grid
xlabel('Frequency (Hz)');
ylabel('Sound Pressure in Decibels');
hold off;
function [spl, freq] = iso226(phon)
% Generates an Equal Loudness Contour as described in ISO 226
% Usage: [SPL FREQ] = ISO226(PHON);
% PHON is the phon value in dB SPL that you want the equal
% loudness curve to represent. (1phon = 1dB @ 1kHz)
% SPL is the Sound Pressure Level amplitude returned for
% each of the 29 frequencies evaluated by ISO226.
% FREQ is the returned vector of frequencies that ISO226
% evaluates to generate the contour.
%
% Desc: This function will return the equal loudness contour for
% your desired phon level. The frequencies evaluated in this
% function only span from 20Hz - 12.5kHz, and only 29 selective
% frequencies are covered. This is the limitation of the ISO
% standard.
%
% In addition the valid phon range should be 0 - 90 dB SPL.
% Values outside this range do not have experimental values
% and their contours should be treated as inaccurate.
%
% If more samples are required you should be able to easily
% interpolate these values using spline().
%
% Author: Jeff Tackett 03/01/05
% /---------------------------------------\
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% TABLES FROM ISO226 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% \---------------------------------------/
f = [20 25 31.5 40 50 63 80 100 125 160 200 250 315 400 500 630 800 ...
1000 1250 1600 2000 2500 3150 4000 5000 6300 8000 10000 12500];
af = [0.532 0.506 0.480 0.455 0.432 0.409 0.387 0.367 0.349 0.330 0.315 ...
0.301 0.288 0.276 0.267 0.259 0.253 0.250 0.246 0.244 0.243 0.243 ...
0.243 0.242 0.242 0.245 0.254 0.271 0.301];
Lu = [-31.6 -27.2 -23.0 -19.1 -15.9 -13.0 -10.3 -8.1 -6.2 -4.5 -3.1 ...
-2.0 -1.1 -0.4 0.0 0.3 0.5 0.0 -2.7 -4.1 -1.0 1.7 ...
2.5 1.2 -2.1 -7.1 -11.2 -10.7 -3.1];
Tf = [ 78.5 68.7 59.5 51.1 44.0 37.5 31.5 26.5 22.1 17.9 14.4 ...
11.4 8.6 6.2 4.4 3.0 2.2 2.4 3.5 1.7 -1.3 -4.2 ...
-6.0 -5.4 -1.5 6.0 12.6 13.9 12.3];
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%Error Trapping
if((phon < 0) || (phon > 90))
disp('Phon value out of bounds!')
spl = 0;
freq = 0;
else
%Setup user-defined values for equation
Ln = phon;
%Deriving sound pressure level from loudness level (iso226 sect 4.1)
Af=4.47E-3 * (10.^(0.025*Ln) - 1.15) + (0.4*10.^(((Tf+Lu)/10)-9 )).^af;
Lp=((10./af).*log10(Af)) - Lu + 94;
%Return user data
spl = Lp;
freq = f;
end
Program 4.1 MATLAB program for graphing equal loudness contours