Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fundamentals of Room Acoustics
Fundamentals of Room Acoustics
Most sound reinforcement systems are located Sound tends to bend around non-porous,
indoors, and the acoustical properties of the small obstacles. However, large surfaces such as the
enclosed space have a profound effect on the boundaries of rooms are typically partially flexible
systems requirements and its performance. Our and partially porous. As a result, when sound strikes
study begins with a discussion of sound absorption such a surface, some of its energy is reflected, some
and reflection, the growth and decay of sound fields is absorbed, and some is transmitted through the
in a room, reverberation, direct and reverberant boundary and again propagated as sound waves on
sound fields, critical distance, and room constant. the other side. See Figure 5-1.
If analyzed in detail, any enclosed space is All three effects may vary with frequency and
quite complex acoustically. We will make many with the angle of incidence. In typical situations, they
simplifications as we construct statistical models of do not vary with sound intensity. Over the range of
rooms, our aim being to keep our calculations to a sound pressures commonly encountered in audio
minimum, while maintaining accuracy on the order of work, most construction materials have the same
10%, or 1 dB. characteristics of reflection, absorption and
transmission whether struck by very weak or very
strong sound waves.
5-1