Wave acoustic solutions in small rooms

Abstract

This presentation will discuss the growing application of wave based solutions due to the increased processing power of desktop and distributed cloud cluster computing. The causes and mitigation of four types of potential acoustical distortion in small rooms, below and above 200 Hz, will be presented. Below 200 Hz, approaches to minimize modal effects and the speaker boundary interference response will be presented. We will discuss limitations of traditional dimensional ratio determinations, more accurate wave-based predictions, importance of speaker and listener locations, and prediction and measurement of low frequency absorption devices. Above 200 Hz, comb filtering from strong specular reflections and poor diffusion are potential problems. We will describe the necessary ratio of surface width to incident wavelength for a specular reflection and its effect on comb filtering. Finally, we describe the importance of creating a mixing room design and the use of broad bandwidth diffusive surfaces, which can be both measured and simulated with a virtual goniometer boundary element program called VIRGO, from a 3D CAD file topology of any shape. This offers the acoustician the ability to evaluate surface topologies that are of interest in a room design quickly and inexpensively.