The effect of reduced frequency resolution on the Speech-Reception Threshold (SRT) for sentences in noise was investigated for eight, normal-hearing subjects. Signal processing was performed by short-time Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT) and overlapping additions to reconstruct a continuous signal. Spectral energy in the frequency region from 100 to 8000 Hz was smeared over fixed relative bandwidths of 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 4, and 8 octaves. The order of conditions was varied according to a Latin-square design. Results show that the SRT increases progressively as the spectral energy is smeared over bandwidths exceeding the ear's critical bandwidth.