| We all know that a concert hall, theatre, lecture room or a church may have good or poor ‘acoustics’. As far as speech in these rooms is concerned, it is relatively simple to make some sort of judgement on their quality by rating the ease with which the spoken word is understood. However, judging the acoustics of a concert hall or an opera house is generally more difficult, since it requires considerable experience, the opportunity for comparisons and a critical ear. Even so, the inexperienced cannot fail to learn about the acoustical reputation of a certain concert hall should they so desire, for instance by listening to the comments of others, or by reading the critical reviews of concerts in the press.
An everyday experience (although most people are not consciously aware of it) is that living rooms, offices, restaurants and all kinds of rooms for work can be acoustically satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Even rooms which are generally considered insignificant or spaces such as staircases, factories, passenger concourses in railway stations and airports may exhibit different acoustical properties; they may be especially noisy or exceptionally quiet, or they may differ in the ease with which announcements over the public address system can be understood. That is to say, even these spaces have ‘acoustics’ which may be satisfactory or less than satisfactory. |
