Klarinet Archive - Posting 000473.txt from 1995/06

From: Ed Pearlstein <e_p@-----.EDU>
Subj: Room acoustics and parallel walls
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 10:08:19 -0400

Several posts have stated that one should do something about parallel walls
in a practice room with poor acoustics. I must differ with that opinion.
It's true that large parallel walls are not desirable for concert halls
(although the Mormon Tabernacle gets away with it), but that statement doesn't
hold with the much smaller rooms used for practice. All practice rooms that I
have seen, whether tiny ones for individual practice, or large ones for
orchestra and band practice, have parallel walls. As do most rooms where
people listen to recorded music. It's a matter of scale. For very large
rooms, such as concert halls, the resonances due to parallel walls are pretty
far apart in frequency, and therefore noticeable; in smaller rooms the
resonances are close and overlap, if the reverberation time is short
enough.
I maintain that the important thing for small practice rooms is just
reverberation time, and that is affected just by the amount of exposed
absorbing material (assuming the room is of reasonable shape - not a long,
narrow hall!)