The Speech Transmission Laboratory (STL) from KTH stands as one of the foundational pillars of modern speech science.
Established and led for decades by Professor Gunnar Fant, the laboratory served as the epicenter for the development of the
Acoustic Theory of Speech Production, the source-filter model, and the early computerized synthesis of human speech.
In the era prior to the internet and rapid digital publishing, the "grey literature" of departmental reports played a critical role in scientific communication.
The STL-QPSR was not merely an internal newsletter; it was a de facto peer-reviewed journal distributed to over 800 institutions in 50 countries.
The delay associated with traditional journals like the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) often exceeded a year.
In contrast, the QPSR allowed the KTH group to publish findings immediately. For nearly half a century, the primary vehicle for the dissemination
of the laboratory's prolific output was STL-QPSR (later renamed TMH-QPSR reflecting the name change to Speech, Music and Hearing).