Liveness is a quality of sound correlated with room volume, reverberation time, and distance between the sound source and listener (or pick‐up device). In this study, speech samples of varied liveness were obtained by mixing, in controlled ratios, the direct output of the talker's microphone and an output passed through a 9×7.5×6 ft reverberation chamber. In preliminary laboratory tests, the materials consisted of PB words, short phrases, and connected discourse; and varied from very low to high liveness values. The main tests were of an applied nature. Lists of sentences of low and zero (dead) liveness were transmitted over VHF radio and presented over earphones to 19 listeners in a series of intelligibility and preference tests. These lists were also presented to listeners in 105 db SPL helicopter cabin noise. The results indicated that the live speech was less intelligible and less preferred.