Architectural Acoustics

William J. Cavanaugh, Gregory C. Tocci, Joseph A. Wilkes

Santika, Beta Bayu

한양대학교
건축공학과
건축음향연구실
Contents

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Sound Outdoors and Transition to Indoor Acoustics

4.3 Concert Halls and Recital Halls

Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.1 INTRODUCTION
• Wallace C. Sabine
20th century is often referred to as the "Sabine century" because the
development of the reverberation equation by Wallace C. Sabine in 1898
initiated an era of outstanding progress toward improved understanding
of the behavior of sound in buildings.
• Leo L. Beranek
Although many made important contributions to the present level of
understanding, Leo L. Beranek must be credited as one of the most important
contributors during the last half of this century. In recent years, the digital
revolution has accelerated the acquisition of knowledge about the behavior of
sound in enclosed spaces by greatly simplifying and speeding the gathering
and processing of information, and significant advances in knowledge are
continuing
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.2 SOUND PROPAGATION IN LISTENING PLACES-OUTDOORS AND INDOORS
• Acoustics Transition From Outside To Inside

Figure 4.1 illustrates the transition from outdoor acoustics to indoor acoustics.
Figure 4.1a shows an audience outdoors on a flat plane, with both inverse square law (whereby the
intensity of sound diminishes inversely with the square of the distance traveled) and audience attenuation
reducing sound levels for listeners at the rear.
Figure 4.1b shows the sloped seating, which reduces audience absorption attenuation.
Figure 4.1c shows the reflector behind the performers, adding reinforcement by reflected sound energy.
Figure4.1d, the reflector is developed into a full stage shell with reflections both from behind and from
above.
Figure 4.le, shell surfaces are extended to envelop the audience, providing additional reinforcement by
reflected sound energy, and the transition to an indoor theater is complete. In this example, the shaping of
walls and ceiling assist both clarity and loudness, but sound-reflecting surfaces can also impair clarity by
creating effects such as reverberation, echoes, flutter (rapidly repeating echoes), and focusing capable of
interfering with good hearing conditions if not properly controlled. So, in comparing the indoor facility with
the outdoor, an enclosure provides positive possibilities for improving hearing conditions but also numerous
potential problems.
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.2 SOUND PROPAGATION IN LISTENING PLACES-OUTDOORS AND INDOORS
• Amphitheatre Design
Acoustical considerations for amphitheaters include:
1. Environmental noise levels at the site, (barriers, walls)
2. Effect of activity noise from the site on surrounding areas, (barriers, walls)
3. Conditions for the performers, (need reflector or little enclosure for the performer)
4. Hearing/viewing conditions for the audience, (unobstructed line-of-sight to the performer)
5. Amplification system design, including microphone pickup conditions on stage and sound system
operator position.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Denver Colorado

Bosra Amphitheatre – Syria

Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.2 SOUND PROPAGATION IN LISTENING PLACES-OUTDOORS AND INDOORS
• Listening Environment
1. Provide good sightlines to performers.
2. Select a quiet site or, in marginal cases, reduce noise with high barriers around listening area.
3. Make certain on-site activities do not disturb neighbors.
4. Provide a high-quality sound amplification system and locate the console in the audience area

• Performing Environment
1. Design for good response and communication for musicians. A full concert shell should be the goal.
(Performance enclosures are discussed later in this chapter.)
2. Design for good microphone pickup. Transition to Indoor Acoustics
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.2 SOUND PROPAGATION IN LISTENING PLACES-OUTDOORS AND INDOORS
• Reverberation
This required for sound energy to decay 60 dB of its initial intensity. The concept defined the reverberation time, and an
associated calculation procedure date from beginning of the 20th century, having been developed by Wallace C. Sabine.
When a single number is quoted for reverberation time, the reference is usually to the value at 500 or 1000 Hz, or an average
of the two.

By: R. Johnson
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.3 CONCERT HALLS AND RECITAL HALLS
• Concert halls
Concert halls represent one of the most interesting types of interior places of assembly to acousticians and may have
benefited more from acoustical research than any other building type over the past 50 years or so. In 1962, after research
based on the evaluation of 54 concert halls, Leo Beranek identified 18 characteristics of halls. Beranek's Music, Acoustics
and Architecture (1962), an important early influence on contemporary concert hall design, and to the more recent (1996)
Concert and Opera Halls: How They Sound, which is an expanded and thoroughly updated revision of the former.
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.3 CONCERT HALLS AND RECITAL HALLS
• Subjective Attributes and Objective Measures
In a 1992 Journal of the Acoustical Society of America tutorial paper,' Beranek presented a condensed list of seven essential
attributes of concert hall acoustics consisting of (1) reverberance, (2) loudness, (3) spaciousness, (4) clarity, (5) intimacy,
(6) warmth, and, (7) hearing on stage. He noted that tI (ITDG), relates closely to both intimacy and spaciousness, in part
because of the effect of the quick reinforcing reflection and also because of the associated physical attributes from a geometry
that produces a quick initial reflection.
The many acoustic parameters associated with concert halls (including those just listed) might be further reduced to just 3
basic groups: (1) those relating to clarity (intelligibility, articulation, definition), (2) those relating to audible room effects or
ambience (sound quality, spaciousness, enhancement), and (3) those relating to loudness. Loudness is largely a function of
hall size and seating capacity, and, therefore, is largely self-determining in an otherwise well-designed all since the sound
power output of the source (orchestra) is a somewhat fixed quantity.

CLARITY Sound Strength or loudness index (G)

Energy Time Curve (ETC)
Early Reflection

LOUDNESS
AMBIENCE
*Primary categories of subjective acoustic attributes in listening spaces
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.3 CONCERT HALLS AND RECITAL HALLS
Loudness is largely a function of hall size and seating capacity, and, therefore, is largely self-determining in an otherwise
well-designed all since the sound power output of the source (orchestra) is a somewhat fixed quantity. Loudness is rated by
the objective measure, G, called strength factor or loudness index. Both Clarity and Ambience are determined by a sequence
of events beginning with the arrival of the initial signal, followed by a continuing series of room reflections that gradually
dissipate because of losses experienced at the boundaries and in the air, The strength, time, and direction-of-arrival
characteristics of these reflections in connection with the relative strength of the direct signal determine subjective
impression.
Strength- time characteristics can be examined on the energy-time curve (ETC). The details of the early portion (consisting of
discrete early reflections) are especially important, and this portion can be further divided at roughly 80 msec into early-early
and late-early categories, with the former being the more significant of the two categories (see Figure 4.4).

Music Clarity Ratio – C80

Speech Clarity Ratio – C50, STI, %Alcons
Bass Ratio (BR)
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.3 CONCERT HALLS AND RECITAL HALLS
Chapter 4
Acoustical Design: Places for Listening
4.3 CONCERT HALLS AND RECITAL HALLS
Conventional wisdom has long held that good speech acoustics equate to poor music acoustics, and vice versa. For spaciousness, the interaural cross-correlation
coefficient (IACC), a measure of the dissimilarity of sounds arriving at the left and right ears and the lateral fraction (LF), a ratio of lateral-to-omnidirectional energy
arrivals, usually integrated over the first 80 msec are the widely used measures, though neither seems to be perfectly reliable.
Two spatial qualities are often described: the apparent source width (ASW) being related to stereo effect or enlargement of the sound source, and the listener envelopment
(LEV) related more to surround-sound effect or "room impression." Recent research indicates that ASW is strongly influenced by the strength of lateral reflections in
the early-early reflection period, while the strength of later arriving lateral energy seems most influential for LEV, most particularly that of later-arriving lateral
energy below 1,000 Hz. Similarly, two types of reverberance are observed, one relating to the sense of singing tone or liveliness during running music and the other
relating to the persistence of sound heard after a stopped tone. The EDT is used to define the former (commonly referred to as liveliness or running liveness), while RT is
used for the latter (often called late or audible reverberation). Since EDT comes from the early portion of the decay process, it correlates well with ELR, and either
measure may be used for rating this aspect of reverberance. Even solid agreement in the acoustical consulting profession on the truly critical attributes would still leave the
designer with the complicated problem of design. In the absence of solid agreement on the various attributes and their relative importance, creation of a universal set of
design principles is still in the future.