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Acoustical Design of Rooms For Speech: by J.S. Bradley
Acoustical Design of Rooms For Speech: by J.S. Bradley
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Acoustical Design of
Rooms for Speech
by J.S. Bradley
This Update explains the acoustical requirements conducive to relaxed and
accurate speech communication in rooms and gives design criteria for a
wide range of room sizes. Some special issues for particular types of rooms
and special groups of listeners are discussed.
Rooms such as classrooms and meeting rooms listeners with better listening conditions so
are intended for speech communication, that they have equal accessibility to speech
but they are often not designed to optimally communication.
support this intended use. When acoustical To establish when near optimum condi-
design issues are ignored, inaccurate tions for speech exist, we can use carefully
communication in a law court or boardroom controlled speech recognition tests, in
can result, and the associated costs can far which the percentages of correctly heard
exceed the relatively modest price of an words or phrases are observed. By deter-
appropriate acoustical design for the room. mining the related acoustical characteristics
Similarly, poor acoustical design choices for for these conditions, we can then derive
a classroom can seriously affect childrens design guidelines for rooms used for speech
educational development. communication. This Update is intended to
Both excessive ambient noise and explain the basic principles of designing
inappropriate room acoustics can degrade rooms such as classrooms, meeting rooms,
the intelligibility of speech in rooms. boardrooms and law courts for good speech
As listeners we often do not realise that we communication. It is not intended to
are having difficulty understanding speech replace the need for expert guidance when
because of our quite remarkable abilities to designing such rooms to achieve high
guess the correct word in noisy or rever- quality speech communication.
berant conditions. We are often only aware
of more difficult communication situations Some Basic Principles
when the interfering noise stops. The louder the speech signal relative to
The negative effects of noise and rever- the level of interfering noise, the more
beration are usually more obvious when intelligible the speech will be. Noise is
listening in a second language in which any kind of unwanted sound. One obvious
we are less able to use context to guess type of noise is that emitted by heating,
particular words. Of course, listeners with ventilating and air conditioning equipment.
any hearing impairment will be more affected Other devices such as projectors or
by inadequate acoustics and excessive noise, computers, and the occupants of the room
as will very young and very old listeners themselves, also contribute unwanted noise
with normal hearing. These groups are that will interfere with our ability to
less capable of processing the speech understand speech.
sounds to correctly determine their meaning. The level of the speech (signal) can vary
Consequently we should provide these with the amount of vocal effort, but increased
Table 1. Maximum ambient noise levels and optimum reverberation
times (RT) for good speech intelligibility
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Some Acoustical Terms
NC Noise Criterion noise rating measure in decibels used
for ventilation type sounds.
A-weighted sound level simple measure for approximating
the loudness of sounds with units dBA and about 7 points
greater than the NC value.
Sound absorption coefficient a number between 0 and 1 that
describes the fraction of the incident sound that is absorbed by
a material.
Sound absorption average (SAA) average absorption coeffi-
cient over frequencies important for speech (replaces the older
noise reduction coefficient (NRC) average).
Equivalent sound absorption the product of the absorption
coefficient and the surface area of the absorbing material, m2.
Reverberation time (RT) the time it takes for sound to die away
to inaudibility after the source is stopped. It is usually measured Figure 2. Maximum ambient noise level goals
from the slope of the sound decay and extrapolated to repre- (solid line) (C=classrooms, L=lecture halls,
sent a 60-dB decay. RT increases with room volume and can be T=theatres, A=large auditoriums)
decreased by adding sound-absorbing material to the room.
Speech transmission index (STI) a measure of the combined section. One gives reverberation time goals
effect of ambient noise and room acoustics on speech intelligi- for normal use and can be considered the
bility. It measures how ambient noise and room acoustics
reduce the natural amplitude fluctuations in speech sounds.
most cost-effective approach. The other gives
reverberation times that would be preferred
Rapid speech transmission index (RASTI) an abbreviated
version of the complete STI.
for various special needs situations
described in the final section.
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Any added sound-absorbing material should requires knowledge of the sound absorption
be more-or-less evenly distributed on the of various products and an estimate of the
other surfaces of the room. absorption of the expected room occupants.
Other rooms are designed to accommodate Consider the room shape and the location
a lecture-style configuration where the of the sound-absorbing material.
talkers location is more fixed. In such rooms In smaller rooms, sound-absorbing material
the surfaces around the talker should gener- should usually be distributed evenly over
ally be sound reflective and those at the the room surfaces but avoiding the centre
opposite ends of the room more absorptive. portion of the ceiling and surfaces close to
Again it is usually desirable that the centre talker locations such as fixed podiums.
portion of the ceiling be sound reflective. In larger rooms the shape of the room and
For larger lecture halls and theatres, the the location of absorption will also be
geometrical design of the room surfaces and important.
the seating locations of the audience must
maximise the direct and early-arriving Summary
speech reflections reaching all listeners. In rooms intended for speech communica-
tion, good acoustical design is particularly
Acoustical Design Steps important. Room size and shape, ambient
An acoustical consultant should take the noise level and amount and location of
following steps in designing a room for sound-absorbing material all affect how
speech communication: well such a room fulfills its purpose.
Assess the acoustical requirements. Expert advice should be sought in order
Will the room be configured in a lecture to produce a room environment for good
style with a fixed speaker location or will it speech communication.
be a more interactive type of use as in
many meeting rooms and classrooms? Will References
1. Urrutikoetxea, A., Ispizua, A., and Matellanes, F.
users of the room regularly include those Vocal pathology in teachers: a video-laryngostrobo-
with special acoustical needs such as very scopic study of 1,046 teachers. Revue de
young, very old or hearing-impaired listeners Laryngologie, Otologie, Rhinologie 116: 25562,
who would require superior listening 1995.
2. Bradley, J.S. Predictors of speech intelligibility in
conditions? (Listeners with more severe rooms. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 80: 83745, 1986.
hearing impairment may require the instal- 3. Bradley, J.S. Speech intelligibility studies in class-
lation of systems that transmit speech to rooms. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 80: 84654, 1986.
personal receiving devices.) 4. Bradley, J.S. Relationships among measures of
speech intelligibility in rooms. J. Aud. Eng. Soc.
Choose a maximum noise level goal. 46: 396405, 1998.
Determine the maximum ambient noise 5. Houtgast, T. and Steeneken, J.M. A review of the
level criterion from Figure 2 and modify it MTF concept in room acoustics and its use for
to meet the needs of particular users. estimating speech intelligibility in auditoria.
J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 77: 106977, 1985.
Design to meet noise criteria. 6. Bradley, J.S. Uniform derivation of optimum
Set the maximum noise level criteria for conditions for speech in rooms. National Research
mechanical systems. Council of Canada, BRN-239, 1985.
7. Elliot, L.L. Effects of noise on perception of speech
Room boundaries must be adequate by children and certain handicapped individuals.
barriers to intruding noise from outdoors Sound and Vibration 16: 1014, 1982.
and from adjacent spaces.
Choose the reverberation time criterion.
Select the RT design goal from Figure 3 and Dr. J.S. Bradley is a senior research officer in the
use the lower (special needs) curve if more Indoor Environment Program of the National
critical uses are expected. Research Councils Institute for Research in
Construction.
Determine the required total sound absorp-
tion and amount of material to be added.
Figure 4 gives a simple estimate of the total
required sound absorption. Calculating the 2002
amount of added sound-absorbing material National Research Council of Canada
March 2002
ISSN 1206-1220