Ecophon Acoustic Bulletin

Robert Ljung (Luleå University of Technology in Sweden/University of Gävle) just concluded his doctoral thesis on room acoustics and cognitive load. The basic hypothesis for the whole project was that listening to speech in a bad acoustic environment should increase the cognitive load for the listener, which should impair memory of the text.

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Posted by Carsten Svensson at 10:12 AM
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Michael Vorländer from Aachen University in Germany contributed with a very interesting feature article on auralization of spaces in Physics Today (June 2009).

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Posted by Carsten Svensson at 10:57 AM
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Most of the reviews of cafés and restaurants focus on the food and services and sometimes on the atmosphere. Unfortunately they seldom mention the sound/noise levels and acoustic experience. The New Zealand Acoustical Society has created a rating sheet and the results are available on-line. Read more here

Rating list
Rating sheet to be filled in

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 11:06 AM
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Tor Halmrast

Mr Tor Halmrast from Norway had a very interesting lecture about how to measure reverberation time, and how important it is to be a good “cougher”.

Tor works with music and acoustics. When he is on holiday, he often finds interesting rooms what he wants to measure. To measure room acoustic parameters today requires a lot of equipment that you seldom bring with you. That is why Mr Halmrast bought a small Wav-recorder and some balloons.

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Posted by Marc Janssen at 3:19 PM
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Mike Barron from the University of Bath, UK, asks himself “when is a concert hall too quiet”? Sound levels in concert halls decrease with distance, but assessment of subjective loudness indicates that loudness judgement is more or less independent of distance from the stage. This leads to the conclusion that listeners compensate their judgement of loudness on the basis of what they see. So people at the back of the hall may compensate for the distance from the source!

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 12:10 PM
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Experiencing spaces by listening is the theme of the website "Spaces Speak, Are You Listening”, by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter. You’ll find interesting stories from the past and present on aural architecture. It links acoustics and buildings with human beings. You can find a glossary; you can listen to an inspiring lecture on aural architecture (mp3), read articles etc.

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 10:41 AM
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Acoustical Society of America produced a position on the use of sound amplification in the classroom. They state that sound amplification should NOT be routinely employed in typical small mainstream classrooms. Additional comments are that sound amplification increases rather than reduces sound levels and good classroom acoustics can be achieved with good architectual design practice. Read more here!

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 2:24 PM
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A new book on acoustics was just released – spaces speak, are you listening? Its authors are Barry Blesser (former Professor at MIT and a founder of digital audio) and Linda-Ruth Salter (independent scholar). The authors are bringing together humanistic, technical and aesthetic considerations of aural architecture with an interdisciplinary approach. Areas touch upon are architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering and so on. You can read about and purchased the book here.

Posted by Carsten Svensson at 11:42 AM
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- Speech privacy in open plan office asks for reduced sound propagation between workstations.
Link to it! Spread it! Enjoy it.

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Posted by Pierre Chigot at 10:02 PM
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- One of the fundamentals of room acoustics. Link to it! Spread it! Enjoy it.

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Posted by Fredrik at 8:53 AM
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