ARCH 322 : BUILDING UTILITIES 3 – ACOUSTICS AND LIGHTING SYSTEMS

WEEK 7 : E. Acoustical Defects

OBJECTIVES : 1. To describe and distinguish the different acoustical defects.
2. To appraise how to resolve these defects through acoustic materials.

LEARNING CONTENT

E. Acoustical Defects
Any room for listening should be free of audible echo, flutter echo, sound focusing, sound creep, room resonance,
and excessive reverberation. These acoustical defects are heavily rooted in source-path-receiver geometry and usually easily
prevented or cured through proper surface shaping, surface positioning, addition of absorbing materials to a surface, and/or
texturing of a surface for diffusion.

• Echo
An echo differs from reverberation. Reverberation is the prolonging of sound through multitude of room
surface sound reflections arriving over a time window from many directions. Take it as a continuation, protraction,
perpetuation, continuation, or extension of the original sound.
Echo is always unwanted, it is the noticeably audible repetition of the original sound, typically arriving after
ricocheting off a first or second or third surface (with delay of more than 0.1 second.) Think of an echo as a
reappearance, recurrence, or replication of the original sound. Echoes can be avoided through the careful planning
of room geometry and selective use of absorptive materials.

• Flutter Echo
You hear the flutter echo as the repetitive “wa-wa-wa-wa-wa”, when clapping in a room or corridor with two
parallel walls, that is – a rapid succession of echoes. Canting or splaying on of the walls by at least five degrees,
applying absorption to one of the walls, or texturing one of the walls for diffusion remedied the problem.
• Sound Creep
Sound creep produces the whispering galleries of old domed government buildings or churches, where even
quiet speech can be heard distance (provided that the listener and speaker are standing) again, sound-reflective
concave curves are the cause. Sound rays leapfrog one another, crisscrossing paths along the chords of the arc, and
converge on the other side, where those early arriving reflections heighten loudness and intelligibility.

• Excessive Reverberation
Excessive reverberation muddles speech, and excessive loudness can elevate the sound level in an
elementary school cafeteria to values that were people exposed for more of the day, might damage human hearing.
Each of these defects is caused by surfaces that are too reflective, and each remedied by addition of absorption.

• Undue Focusing of Sound

Eschew concave-curved surfaces, whether on the rear wall of a theater or the dome of the lobby that will hold
music performances. Reflective curves like these “focus” sound the way a curved mirror or lens focuses light. The multiple
reflections arriving and converging at the focal point simultaneously, an echo is heard, and the areas not in the focal point
fail to get reflections, generating acoustical dead spots. The simultaneously arriving reflections from a curved surface can
produce a reflection louder than even the direct sound.