A graphical functionW(r, c) has been determined experimentally, in whichWis word articulation,ris the relative level of unclipped speech and the noise, andcis the amount of uniform, symmetrical, speech‐peak clipping. Pre‐emphasis of the speech signal gave an approximately uniform speech spectrum prior to clipping. Uniform, random noise was mixed with the clipped speech before postequalization, making the final noise spectrum similar in shape to the speech spectrum. The real‐ear response of the earphones was compensated electrically to yield a uniform orthotelephonic response for the communication system, in the frequency range contributing significantly to articulation index. For constant clippingcnthe functionW(r, cn) approachesW(r, 0) as a limit for sufficiently large values ofr. Forc