Early decay times in the Christchurch and Wellington concert halls, New Zealand

Abstract

The concert halls in Christchurch Town Hall and the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand, have large suspended reflecting surfaces which provide early lateral reflections to listeners. One objective outcome of this is that measured early decay time (EDT) values are shorter than the reverberation time. EDT values for these two halls published in the book, Auditorium Acoustics and Architectural Design (Spon/Chapman & Hall, London, 1993) are now known to be significantly in error, due to a software fault in the signal analysis program used. Corrected diagrams including the EDT are presented as well as a brief discussion of sound decay in these halls.