Architectural Acoustics

Architectural acoustics refers to how the sounds are reflected in a room. Some factors that can affect perception for example in a concert hall are:

• Reverberation time- "the amount of time it takes sound to decrease by 1/1000th of its original pressure."
• Imtimacy time-"time between when sound leaves its source and when the first reflection arrives."
• Bass ratio- "ratio of low to middle frequencies reflected from surfaces."
• Spacious factor- "fraction of all the sound received by listener that is indirect."

http://faculty.washington.edu/ionefine/S&P2009pdfs/S&P2009_chapter10.pdf

Hearing inside rooms

• direct sound-sound that comes from the source directly and reaches the listeners ears.
• indirect sound-sound that reaches the listener by being reflected off of environmental surfaces.

When a person is inside a building both direct and indirect sound occurs compared to outside when the sound is mostly direct.

        We learned in class about the cues for auditory location and I chose to focus on architectural acoustics. I never really thought about how sound takes places inside large rooms such as a concert hall. I've been to plenty of concerts but just didn't think about it. I became curious about this and found this topic interesting. This relates to perception and how sounds are perceived differently both inside and outside.
                               
Judith Murawski