You are on page 1of 11

Audio Engineering Society

Convention Paper 7677


Presented at the 126th Convention
2009 May 7–10 Munich, Germany

The papers at this Convention have been selected on the basis of a submitted abstract and extended precis that have been peer
reviewed by at least two qualified anonymous reviewers. This convention paper has been reproduced from the author's advance
manuscript, without editing, corrections, or consideration by the Review Board. The AES takes no responsibility for the contents.
Additional papers may be obtained by sending request and remittance to Audio Engineering Society, 60 East 42nd Street, New
York, New York 10165-2520, USA; also see www.aes.org. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this paper, or any portion thereof,
is not permitted without direct permission from the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society.

A New Reference Listening Room For


Consumer, Professional and Automotive
Audio Research
1
Sean E. Olive
1
Harman International
Northridge, CA, 91329, USA
sean.olive@harman.com

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the features, scientific rationale and acoustical performance of a new reference listening room
designed for the purpose of conducting controlled listening tests and psychoacoustic research for consumer,
professional and automotive audio products. The main features of the room include quiet and adjustable room
acoustics, a high quality calibrated playback system, an in-wall speaker mover, and complete automated control of
listening tests performed in the room.

1. INTRODUCTION
reproduced sounds, and even affect listeners’
Listening tests play an important role in the research,
loudspeaker preferences [3]. Finally, the listening room
development and testing of consumer, professional and
should be designed to prevent noise from entering or
automotive audio products at Harman International. The
exiting the room so that listeners can reliably judge both
listening room in which these tests are performed is a low and high level sounds without disturbing their
significant nuisance variable, which left uncontrolled, neighbors.
can bias the results. Below 300 Hz, the modal behavior
of the room can affect the quality and quantity of low
With these challenges in mind, a new prototype
frequency sounds heard by the listener that vary
reference listening room was recently designed and built
according to the room’s dimensions, its absorption, and
at Harman International in Northridge, California for the
the locations of the loudspeakers and listeners [1]-[2].
purpose of conducting listening tests and
Above 300 Hz, the reflectivity of the room can
psychoacoustic research related to consumer,
influence the timbral and spatial attributes of
professional and automotive audio products. The room
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

is one of four being replicated at other Harman locations dimensions provide a high-quality 7.1 multichannel
across the world, so that listener training, product playback experience for four to six listeners arranged in
evaluations and psychoacoustic research can be two rows of three seats.
conducted at different locations under similar well-
defined acoustical conditions. This paper describes the A diagram of the room in Fig. 1 shows the standard
features, scientific rationale and acoustical performance setup of the front, side and rear loudspeakers, as well as
of the prototype room built in Northridge, California. the four subwoofers located in the corners of the room.
The room is sufficiently large to allow the loudspeakers
to be arranged in an ITU-R [6] circle such that all main
2. A MULTI-PURPOSE LISTENING ROOM
channels are equidistant (2.9 m) to the primary listening
seat. The symmetrical placement of the left and right
The room has been designed for several different pair of loudspeakers ensures that properties of the
purposes. Firstly, the room must provide a standardized, reflections produced by these pairs will be similar for a
high-quality listening environment for the reproduction listener sitting along the centerline of the room. Of
and critical evaluation of multichannel (7.1) recordings course that is only true if the acoustical treatment of the
and/or audio technologies including loudspeakers, room is also symmetrical, which is the case here (see
amplifiers, and audio algorithms. section 3.5).
Secondly, the room must provide a means for proper .
comparative evaluation of loudspeakers intended for
installation in, on, or near a wall. This includes in-wall
speakers, automotive transducers, and home and
multimedia systems intended to be mounted on or near a
wall where a substantial low frequency boundary effect
occurs below 500 Hz [1], [4], [5].

Thirdly, the reference listening room must provide a


standardized playback environment for the selection and
training of listeners used for product evaluation and
research. This allows Harman scientists to make valid
comparison of listener training and listening test results
measured in reference listening rooms at different
geographical locations.

Lastly, there was a desire that the acoustics of the


reference room be adjustable to allow investigations
into how different acoustical room treatments affect the
perception of loudspeaker directivity, loudspeaker-room
equalization, and room acoustic adaptation [3]. These
are important research questions that have not been
adequately answered in the scientific literature.

3. DESCRIPTION

The following section describes the dimensions, Figure 1 A simple diagram of the prototype reference
construction, acoustical treatment, equipment, and other listening room showing dimensions, speaker setup and
main features of the Harman reference listening room. in-wall mover.

3.1. Dimensions

The internal dimensions of the reference listening


rooms are: 6.4 m (w) x 7.32 m (l) x 2.74 m (h). These

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 2 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

3.2. Listening Room Construction The wall cavity is filled fiberglass. The gypsum board is
attached to the metal stud with a sparse amount of
The following section describes the construction details screws to allow the wall to flex and absorb energy. A
of the reference listening room. bead of acoustical caulking adhesive is applied to each
stud to minimize rattling between the studs and gypsum
3.2.1. Double Shell Construction board. This particular wall construction was chosen
based on the research of Bradley who found that there is
The construction of the reference listening room is less low frequency absorption below 200 Hz as the
designed to provide good noise isolation from sounds depth of the stud decreases, and as the thickness or
entering the room from an adjacent office areas, yet layers of gypsum board increases [8]. Also, a single
provide dampening of room modes generated inside the layer of gypsum board on one side of the stud is less
room. A Balanced Noise Criterion (NCB) [7] of 10 or effective as a low-frequency absorber than a single layer
better was the desired target for background noise. In on each side. Toole provides a good summary of the
order to achieve this, a double-shell room design was absorption coefficients of different gypsum wall
employed as illustrated in Fig. 2. constructions (see Fig. 21.6 in [1]).

3.2.2. Ceiling

The reference listening room ceiling is constructed in a


similar fashion as the walls having an inner and outer
shell that are decoupled from each other. The inner
ceiling is built from 15.24 cm metal studs with a single
layer of 1.27 cm gypsum board attached to either side of
the stud with metal screws and a bead of acoustic
caulking. The outer ceiling is structurally reinforced to
allow storage on the roof of the listening room. The
outer ceiling consists of 5.08 x 25.4 cm wooden joists
that support three layers of 1.59 cm gypsum board, and
one layer of 1.9 cm thick plywood.

3.2.3. Floating Floor

A floating floor construction was employed in the


reference listening room to isolate the floor from noise
and vibration transmitted from the adjacent office and
factory areas. The listening room floor consists of a
Figure 2 Details on the wall, ceiling, and floor laminate hardwood that rests on a foam underlay. Next
construction of the reference listening room. is a 1.9 cm plywood subfloor that is screwed to 5 x 10
cm wood studs. The studs sit on 1.9 cm thick rubber
isolation pads. The purpose of the isolation pads is to
minimize the transmission of noise and vibration from
The outer shell provides the necessary mass required for the concrete slab to the floor of the room. The 5x10 cm
good sound isolation at low frequencies. The walls of studs are fixed to the concrete slab with anchor bolts
the outer shell are constructed with 5 x 15.24 cm attached only at the ends of each stud to provide
wooden studs covered with one layer of 1.9 cm additional dampening of vibration.
plywood, and three layers 1.6 cm gypsum board. A 0.46
cm air gap is provided between the outer and inner 3.2.4. Main Entrance Door
shells of the walls.
The main entrance door to the reference room consists
The inner shell walls are constructed of standard 9.2 cm of two doors (an inner and outer door) constructed of
lightweight steel studs to which are attached a single solid wood core with a 25.4 cm air space separating the
layer of 1.27 cm gypsum board on each side of the stud. two doors. The doors are well sealed at the top and sides

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 3 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

with weather stripping. The bottom of the door Finally, great care was taken in the design of the HVAC
automatically seals itself with a mechanical door sealer system to minimize the noise from air turbulence and
that drops into place when the door is closed. whistling noise. An independent HVAC system was
chosen for the room in order to greatest amount of
3.3. Services control, flexibility and performance in terms of noise
control. The HVAC compressor and fan are suspended
The services include lighting, electrical (audio, phone above the room with the supply and return ducts
and data network, and AC power), water sprinklers, and mechanically decoupled from the inner shell. Each duct
heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). is acoustically lined, oversized and equipped with a 5-
Services are often the weakest link in an otherwise section silencer that virtually eliminate any audible
acoustically well-designed listening room. Lights, noise or turbulence in the room. In cases where absolute
HVAC, water pipes and electrical wiring can produce silence is required the HVAC system can be turned off.
significant noise, hum, rattle, and buzz. Bringing these
services into a listening room can result in perforations 3.4. In-wall Speaker Mover
in the outer and inner shells of the room and
compromise the noise isolation of the room. Consumer demand for low profile loudspeakers that
mount in, on or near a wall has increased since the
With this in mind, careful attention was paid to the availability of flat-panel wall-mounted video displays.
selection and installation of the services provided for the In a similar vein, the ubiquitous Apple’s IPod has led to
reference room to ensure that they did not compromise the proliferation multimedia speakers and IPod music
the desired low background noise performance. docking play stations that often find themselves on a
desktop or near a wall.
Room lighting in the reference listening room is
provided by 12 V ceiling lights mounted on four tracks The acoustical effects of mounting a loudspeaker near
that can be individually controlled and dimmed. The adjacent boundaries have been well documented by
electrical transformers are moved outside the room to Allison and Berkovitz [4], Allison [5], and more
eliminate a potential source of noise. Rattles from the recently Toole (see chapter 12 of [1]). Mounting a
tracks themselves are suppressed by applying acoustical loudspeaker in, on or near a wall or boundary, such as a
silicon caulking between the track and the ceiling. shelf or desktop, can have a significant effect on its
Rattles from the electrical wiring inside the ceiling and frequency response below 500 Hz due to solid angle
walls are eliminated by decoupling the wires from the boundary gain, and acoustic interference. If listening
metal studs via rubber grommets and where possible tests performed on these products are to be valid and
suspending the wiring from the studs. The results are meaningful, they must include these interaction effects
very effective: even the most tooth-rattling subwoofer between the loudspeaker, boundary and/or the desktop.
passages from the latest Hollywood blockbuster movie
produce no audible rattles from the services installed in The reference listening room has been designed with
the room. this in mind. A custom, motorized 3-sided in-wall
speaker mover has been developed that permits rapid
To minimize the number (i.e. 2) of wall perforations and three-way (A/B/C) comparisons among loudspeakers
provide maximum flexibility all audio, network and intended to be used in/on/near a wall including a
electrical connections are accessible via a dual-track desktop. The speaker mover can accommodate proper
conduit that runs along the inside perimeter of the room. testing of four different categories of loudspeakers: (1)
The conduit is decoupled from the walls and floor to in-wall loudspeakers, (2) on-wall loudspeakers, (3)
minimize another potential source of rattle. Outlets for floor-standing loudspeakers designed to be near a wall,
AC power and audio (both line and speaker level) are and (4) loudspeakers designed to be on a desktop or
available every 1.8 m along the wall. shelf near a wall (e.g. multimedia speakers and IPod
music stations).
The water sprinkler system is also designed to limit the
outer ceiling perforations to just a single hole through Removal wall baffles are used for mounting the in-wall
which the main supply pipe runs the length of the room loudspeakers into the speaker mover’s internal wall
between the inner and outer ceilings from which the enclosure. On-wall speakers are mounted onto the wall
individual sprinkler heads are fed. baffle itself. Slim floor-standing speakers with a depth

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 4 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

of less than 30.5 cm can be mounted to the base of the administer listening tests. Positional changes between
speaker mover. Three detachable semi-circular shelves loudspeakers can be performed in about 2 s.
can be mounted to the in-wall mover for testing
bookshelf, multimedia or IPod music stations. The shelf 3.5. Acoustical Treatment
can be extended into a full sized desk by moving in
place a stationary desk that has a cutout for where the An important feature of the listening room is the ability
rotating shelf fits in. A visually opaque, acoustically to manipulate its reflectivity through removable
transparent screen is placed between the mover and absorptive and diffusive panels. This is desirable for
listener so that the test is double blind. studying the perceptual effects of loudspeaker-room
interactions on reproduced sound. The acoustical
A photograph of the in-wall mover is shown in Fig. 3 changes are made by adding or removing the thick area
configured for testing of three loudspeakers intended for rug and the absorptive and diffusive acoustical baffles
on-wall mounting. that attach to the two wooden rails on the walls. Each
rail has a 45 °groove cut out of its top into which fits a
cleat attached to the back of the acoustic panel. The rails
are situated at different heights to allow the bottom and
top halves of the wall to be treated the same or
differently.

The absorptive panels are manufactured by Quest and


consist of fiberglass panels (1.2 m (w) x 1.2 m (l) x 0.91
m (d)) with a density of 100 kg/m3. For ease of
mounting to the wall railings, the fiberglass is laminated
to a 0.64 cm masonite board, and covered with
Guildford FR701 fabric. The thickness of the fiberglass
determines the effective lower frequency limit at which
is approximately 200 Hz for a depth of 0.91 cm (3 in). It
is important to note that the absorption characteristics of
materials can be very dependent on the angle of sound
incidence [1]. Sounds that arrive at normal incidence
will generally be less attenuated than sounds arriving
from angles that further off-axis.

Custom semi-cylindrical diffuser panels were also


fabricated to provide reasonably wideband diffusion
down to 200 Hz. The dimensions of the diffusers are 1.2
m (h) x 0.61 m (w) x 0.61(d). It is important to
emphasize that the diffusers and the absorbers should
operate over a wide bandwidth in order to maintain the
fidelity of the reflected and scattered sounds received at
Figure 3 A photograph of the in-wall speaker mover the listeners’ ears.
located in the Northridge Reference Listening Room.
The placement of the acoustical panels in the reference
listening room shown in Figs. 4 (a) and (b) is based on
the scientific rationale proposed by Toole [1]. In order
The rotation of the 3-sided wall is done via a powerful to encourage spaciousness (broadening of the apparent
but quiet DC servomotor that is mounted into a concrete source width) the sidewalls are left untreated at the
pit beneath the floor. Attached to the motor’s flange is point where the first lateral reflections produced by the
an aluminum plate to which is attached the rotating wall front channels arrive at the listening location.
section. Audio and power is fed to the loudspeakers
through the top of the wall. The rotation of the wall is
controlled via the listening test software used to

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 5 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

(a)

(b)
Figure 4 A view of the acoustical treatment in the Northridge reference listening room from (a) the perspective of
the top front left corner of the room and (b) from the right rear corner of the room.

Most of the absorptive panels are placed along the front 3.6. Furniture
and rear walls at locations where the room reflections
The furniture in the reference listening room consists of
arriving at the listener will have little spatial benefit.
six comfortable leather hotel chairs. The chairs were
The diffusers and RPG Skylines and are placed near the
selected for their relatively small profile: 79 cm (w) x
side and rear channels to provide additional sources of
84 cm (d) x 74 cm (h). Their compact size allows the
reflections and scattering of sound. A symmetrical
chairs to be tightly arranged in two rows of three
pattern of acoustical treatment was generally observed
without being too far from the primary listening zone.
for the front, side and rear walls. In this way, the
The backs of the chairs do not interfere with the direct
reflections produced by each pair of left/right
sound produced by the side and rear loudspeakers.
front/side/rear loudspeakers should be mirror images of
The only other furniture in the room is a low storage
each other.
cabinet located at the rear of the room where the

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 6 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

program source machines are located (Mac Mini, DVD, 3.8. Audio Playback System
Blu-ray player).
A block diagram of the audio playback system is shown
in Fig. 5. The upper half of the diagram shows the
3.7. Video Playback equipment located inside the room and the lower half
contains the equipment located in an equipment rack
A high quality video projection system is required for outside the room near the entrance to the speaker mover.
presentations, listener training, and playback of DVD Inside the room are located the media source players
and Blu-ray discs. A JVC DLA-RS1 1080p HD (Lexicon DVD, Toshiba HD DVD players) located on
projector displays the picture onto a motorized the AV cabinet at the back of the room to facilitate
retractable 305 cm diagonal screen made by Stewart control and access to media content during
Filmscreen. demonstrations.

Figure 5 A block diagram of the audio equipment setup in the Harman Reference Listening Room.

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 7 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

database so that the test can be replicated at any Harman


The audio signals from source devices are sent to the
location.
Lexicon MC-12B located in the equipment rack outside
the room via the AES-EBU and optical outputs sent
The client application runs on a wireless Pocket PC and
over CAT-5 Gefen optical extenders. The video outputs
is used by the listener to control the switching of test
are video signals are directly to the JVC projector
objects, and enter ratings and comments. The client
mounted inside the room. The Mac Mini computer is
application sends commands and ratings to the server
used for presentations, playing iTunes, and running
application wirelessly over TCP/IP. The server
Harman’s listener training and listening test software.
processes the client requests, receives and stores the
Sound files are played through an external 8-channel
ratings in the database.
sound card (Echo Firewire 8). The analog outputs are
sent to the equipment rack via an 8-channel snake that
Once a test is completed the listener ratings are stored in
connects to the outside equipment rack. The
a centralized database. A web-based application
loudspeaker system consists of 7 well-matched JBL
provides statistical analysis of the listening test results
LSR 6332 professional 3-way monitors, and 4 JBL
or the raw test data can be uploaded as a comma
HB5000 powered subwoofers. The LRS monitors are
delimited (CVS) text file for further analysis.
elevated on stands so that the tweeters are located at ear
height for a seated listener.
4. ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENTS
The outside equipment rack contains a Lexicon MC-12
B, which provides audio source device switching and This section describes the in-room acoustical
surround sound decoding. All bass management, measurements of the loudspeaker playback system used
speaker-room equalization is done via a 16-channel BSS in the reference listening room, and reverberation (RT60)
Audio BLU-80, which can be remotely controlled and measurements of the room.
programmed over Ethernet via the London Architect.
Software. The device has both balanced analog and 4.1. Measurement and Calibration of the
Cobranet digital outputs that can be digitally connected Loudspeaker System
to the two BSS Audio BLU-32 boxes and the Crown
CTS 8200 power amplifier via a single CAT-5 cable.
The Crown amplifier powers passive loudspeakers The in-room frequency response of each loudspeaker
tested using the in-wall speaker mover. channel was measured at each of the 6 seats to
determine the accuracy and consistency in response
The second amplifier (Lexicon LX-7) powers the main across all channels and seating locations. The four bass-
JBL LSR 6332 monitor system in the listening room. managed subwoofers were first calibrated over the 6
One of the BSS Audio BLU-32 boxes acts as a D/A listening seats using an optimization method known as
device before the Lexicon amplifier. The second BLU- sound field management [9].
32 is also used as a D/A output device for the four
powered subwoofers and to drive the binaural room Measurements were performed using the Harman Audio
scanning playback hardware [Olive] Test System (HATS), a proprietary 16-channel
measurement system that uses a Farina log sweep that
3.9. Listening Test Software provides 48 frequency bins per octave across the audio
bandwidth. The in-room frequency response curves
A custom client-server software program has been measurement shown in Fig. 6 show the average
developed to control and automate the listening tests measured response across six seats with a 1/6-octave
conducted in the reference room. In this way, the tests post-smoothing applied to raw data.
are double blind, efficient and repeatable.
The 8 frequency response curve, from top to bottom,
The experimenter uses the server application to define represent: the average response of the 7 channels, the
all parameters of the listening test including the left, right, center front channels, the left and right sides,
and the left and right surrounds. The curves are
equipment settings, perceptual scales, listener
instructions, number of trials, and program selections. generally very smooth, flat (± 2dB, 20 Hz – 10 kHz),
This setup information is stored in a centralized well behaved, and consistent among the 7 channels.

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 8 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

Figure 6 The average in-room frequency response of each loudspeaker channel averaged across the six seats. The
top curve represents that average response across all 7 channels.

Figure 7 The in-room frequency response taken at each of the six seating locations for the left channel. The dark
solid curve is the average response for all six seats.

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 9 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

The roll-off above 10 kHz is not a concern since the in- diffuse, isotropic sound fields. Nonetheless, an attempt
room response represents a combination of both direct was made to minimize the resultant measurement errors
and reflected sounds produced by the loudspeaker. In by energizing the room with a large number of
particular, the reflected sound should naturally contain loudspeakers, and averaging the measurements over
less high frequency due to the that the directivity of the several different microphone locations.
loudspeaker, and the high frequency absorption from air
and the room’s furnishings. The room was measured under five different conditions:
1) bare room (seats, carpet, diffusers and absorbers
Fig. 7 shows the seat-to-seat variation in the in-room removed), 2) absorbers only, 3) seats/carpet only, 4)
frequency response for the left channel only. The seat- reference setup with no diffusers, and 5) reference setup
seat variations are approximately ± 2.5 dB above 1.5 with diffusers. The results plotted in Figure 8 reveal that
kHz, and ± 5 dB below 1 kHz. The variations in the bare room produces a maximum RT60 value of 1.7 s
response are primarily due to acoustical interactions at 500 Hz and even larger values at higher frequencies.
between the loudspeaker and the listening room. These Simply adding an area carpet and six leather chairs to
include room mode effects below 300 Hz, and the room brings the room RT60 down to 1.1 s at 500 Hz.
acoustical interference effects from reflections above However, the wall absorbers are clearly doing the brunt
300 Hz. of the work as they alone bring the RT60 down to 0.7 s at
500 Hz. The reference setup produced the lowest
average RT60 value of 0.4 s. It is interesting to note that
4.2. Room Measurements the diffusers actually reduced the reverberation time,
probably by their scattering of sound towards absorptive
Acoustical measurements were also conducted in the surfaces. For the reference setup, the 0.4 s value puts the
reference listening room to determine how various reference room’s reverberation time among the typical
acoustic treatments of the room affect the measured values Bradley measured in 600 domestic rooms [10].
reverberation time (RT60). Toole has argued that
reverberation measurements of domestic sized rooms
are rather pointless, since such rooms do not produce

Figure 8 The RT60 for the Harman Reference Listening Room for different acoustical conditions.

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 10 of 11
Olive A New Reference Listening Room

“Sketchups” of the room. The reference listening room


5. CONCLUSIONS project would not have as successful without the
professionalism, craftsmanship, and significant design
The features, scientific rationale and acoustical contributions made by the late Rex Lexis at Tico
performance a new reference listening room have been Contractors.
described in the previous sections. The acoustical
measurements of the room and its playback system
8. REFERENCES
discussed in section 4 provide evidence that the
performance goals have been largely met. Background
[1] Toole F.E. Sound Reproduction, Focal Press
noise measurements of the room are still underway and
(2008).
will hopefully confirm our subjective impressions that
the room is sufficiently quiet for controlled listening
[2] Toole F.E. “Loudspeakers and Rooms for Sound
experiments.
Reproduction – A Scientific Review,” J. Audio
Eng. Soc., vol. 54, pp. 451-476, 2006.
Two important features have been added to the new
reference listening room. The first feature is the ability
[3] Olive S.E. and Martens W.L. “Interaction Between
to modify the acoustics of the room so that researchers
Loudspeakers and Room Acoustics Influences
can better understand the perceptual effects of
Loudspeaker Preferences in Multichannel Audio
interactions between loudspeakers and room acoustics.
Reproduction,” 123rd Convention, Audio Eng. Soc.,
The second feature is an automated in-wall speaker
Preprint 7196, 2007.
mover that permits proper comparative evaluations of
loudspeakers designed to be mounted in/on or near a
wall. [4] Allison R.F and Berkovitz R., “The Sound Field in
Home Listening Rooms,” J. Audio Eng. Soc., 20,
pp 459-469, 1972.
6. FUTURE WORK
[5] Allison, R.F. “The Influence of Room Boundaries
The prototype listening room described in this paper has on Loudspeaker Power Output,” J. Audio Eng. Soc,
been replicated at other Harman facilities in Bridgend, 22, pp.314-320, 1974.
UK, and one is currently being built at Farmington
Hills, Michigan. A slightly scaled-down version of the [6] ITU-R Recommendation BS. 775-2, “Multichannel
room has also been constructed at Karlsbad, Germany. Stereophonic Sound System With and Without
Accompanying Picture,” 2006.
The next phase of this work will validate and confirm
that the acoustical performance and sound quality of [7] Beranek L.L, “Balanced Noise-Criterion (NCB)
these four rooms and their playback systems are Curves,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 86, pp. 650-664,
essentially the same. The results of that study will 1989.
hopefully be the topic of a future paper.
[8] Bradley J.S., “Sound Absorption of Gypsum Board
Cavity Walls,” J. Audio Eng. Soc., 45, pp. 253-259,
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1997.
Harman International supported this work. The author
[9] Welti T. and Devantier A., ”Low-Frequency
would like to thank his colleagues for their significant
Optimization Using Multiple Subwoofers,” J.
contributions to this very labor intensive project: Floyd
Audio Eng. Soc., 54, pp. 347-364, 2006.
Toole was acoustical designer of the room; Todd Welti
provided the acoustical measurements of the room;
[10] Bradley J.S. “Acoustical Measurements in
Allan Devantier measured and calibrated the playback
Canadian Homes,” Canadian Acoustics, 14, no. 4.,
system; John Jackson oversaw the installation and
1986.
operation of the room; Eric Hu, Sean Hess and Toby
Newman developed the listening test software; Sean
Hess performed all BSS London Architect programming
of the BLU boxes; Alex Miller provided the Google

AES 126th Convention, Munich, Germany, 2009 May 7–10


Page 11 of 11

You might also like