Room Acoustics

Once the instruments make the music, originally designed by the composer and implemented by the musicians, it still must reach the listener’s ears. This is where the appropriate choice of room acoustics is important. The venue must do justice to the music by faithfully projecting the sound. There are many factors that affect the sound that reaches listeners, including size and construction of the room, contents in the venue, and the genre of the music. The latter factor determines the size of the musical group and specific instrumentation involved. Acousticians and sound engineers set standards for the best reproduction of sound and use detailed calculations that help decide the best conditions for a particular musical or vocal situation. The most important variable that is used in this design is the reverberation time. This is the time it takes for sound to die away to \(10^{-6}\) of its original intensity, or 60 dB. In this chapter we will outline the factors that affect the best sound reproduction and how sites can be designed to meet these criteria.