Speaker coverage in active acoustic music practice rooms.

Abstract

Larger music practice rooms (>25 m3) present unique challenges compared to smaller, traditional practice rooms (6–12 m3) when employing active acoustics technology and integrated digital recording. An experiment was conducted comparing a ceiling array of 32 speakers in a large music practice room (5.3×5.7×2.7 m3, 81 m3) with that of eight speakers located in corners of that room (one at the top and one at the bottom in each corner facing parallel to the walls). The goal was to determine which speaker configuration would be the most effective for creating even sound field coverage and uniform frequency response. Data were collected for both seated and standing positions in the room from a matrix of 42 locations. Frequencies from 40 Hz to 8 kHz were plotted for analysis. The data were compared to the qualitative preferences expressed by a number of musicians using the rooms for both practice sessions (with the active acoustics enabled) and listening to the playback of recorded practice sessions.