How to Achieve Perfect Auditorium Acoustics

In an auditorium there will be many listeners. It is important that sound can propagate to each and every one of them. No matter where a person is sitting he/she should listen to the sounds coming from the stage clearly. The acoustics should be setup just so that they allow the sound to propagate to the audience without any interference. There is another important thing that acoustic panels can help in; they isolate noise from the sound.

Here is an instructable that should help you in understanding and setting up the perfect auditorium acoustics.

Step 1: Check for Sound Propagation

As sound waves travel at about 345 meters/second, the sound coming directly from a source within an auditorium will generally reach a listener after a time of anywhere from 0.01 to 0.2 seconds. You should know for impulsive sounds, the reverberant sound begins to decay immediately.

Step 2: Check for Early Reflections

First reflections usually arrive from the nearest side wall or from the ceiling for those seated in the center. If you focus on reflections from the ceiling or overhead reflectors are not as perceptually desirable as those from side walls.

Step 3: Circulating Reverberation Time

You should know when expressed in units of cubic and square meters, the reverberation time is given by RT = 0.161 V/A, where V is the volume of the room and A is the effective “total absorption” area. The ``total absorption'' area is calculated as the sum of all surface areas in the room, each multiplied by its respective absorption coefficient.

Step 4: Criteria for Good Acoustics

Optimum reverberation time is a compromise between clarity (requiring short reverberation time), sound intensity (requiring a high reverberant level), and liveliness (requiring a long reverberation time). Narrow halls are generally preferred to wide ones.

These are some of the basic things which can change the way people listen to sound in the auditorium.