Room Acoustics, TJC 2003-6, (c) University of Salfor

A Design requirements for small rooms

A.1 Aims and learning outcomes Students will be able to describe, compare and contrast the design philosophies Live End Dead End, Reflection Free Zone and Non-Environment A.2 Introduction see also! http!""www acoustics salford ac u#"acoustics$world"enc%clopaedia"studio$design"inde& htm 'here are several wa%s of designing a small room, such as a studio control room or listening room (hich is to be preferred is a matter of taste, and also it)s purpose * whether it is to be used to mi& music, or for critical listening A.2.1 Mid-high frequencies Small sound reproduction rooms pose particular problems in acoustic design +o into a small untreated bare room and clap %our hands, and %ou usuall% get a distorted sound 'he sound direct from %our hands is ,uic#l% followed b% reflections from the walls, ceiling and floor -n small rooms, first order reflections tend to be loud and ,uic# to arrive 'hese reflections can cause the sound to be coloured, or to put it another wa%, the timbre of the sound will change -n e&treme cases it can also cause the sound image to appear to come from the wrong directions .onse,uentl%, to avoid colouration and imaging problems, the acoustic design of post-production studios needs to first concentrate on the treatment of the first arriving reflections 'here are two basic forms of acoustic treatment to deal with earl% reflections, namel% absorption and diffusion /ne solution to the earl% reflections is to appl% absorption to the wall 'his absorption can be a specialist product such as ones made of mineral wool, open cell foam, or a rec%cled material, but it can also be a more commonplace ob0ect such as curtains, a sofa or carpet -f there is too much absorption, however, the room will sound 1dead1 -t would be li#e listening outdoors, where onl% the direct sound from the sound source is heard (hile some people favour such acoustic non-environments for mi&ing, see below, for man% people these are rather oppressive spaces too far removed from normal listening conditions Diffusers are used to spatiall% disperse reflections Some dispersion can be caused b% appropriatel% placing boo# cases and other furniture, but specialist diffusing surfaces should be favoured where possible, as the% achieve greater dispersion in a more controlled manner 2% using diffusers, first order reflections are dispersed to be heard latter b% the listener, after reflection off other surfaces -ndeed, b% removing and dela%ing earl% reflections, diffusion and absorption can ma#e a small post-production studio sound li#e a larger room .onse,uentl%, mid-high fre,uenc% design is about locating the reflection points for first order reflections, and appl%ing appropriate treatment there -t is important to reali3e that since this is a sound reproduction room, the room can onl% corrupt what is being reproduced b% the pla%bac# s%stem 'he unwanted artefacts added b% the room are acoustic distortion A.2.2 Bass frequencies Standing wave modes in the room lead to e&cessivel% long deca% times at low fre,uencies which cause audible distortion 4ppropriate treatment is needed to prevent this b% appropriate choice of room dimensions, listener and source positions, and the application of bass absorption (e shall return to this later in the course, for now we will concentrate on what happens at mid-high fre,uencies A.3 Rooms with some reverberance Design concepts such as Live End Dead End 5LEDE67i and Reflection Free Zone 5RFZ87 ii have been in place for a couple of decades, and are e&tremel% popular designs iii 'hese both maintain some reverberance in the room 5'9: ; : <-: =s at mid-fre,uencies7 '%picall% the dela% between the direct sound and the first reflection from the rear wall of a listening room is about >?-<:ms -t so happens that the first <:ms are ver% significant to an e&perienced listener @igh level arrival of these ver% earl% reflections can create comb filtering effects Reflections should be at least >:d2 below the direct signal otherwise the listener to minimise distortions 5some strive for a -<:d2 reflection level7

Room Acoustics, TJC 2003-6, (c) University of Salfor A.3.1 Live End Dead End 'he front end of the room is treated with lots of absorbent to minimi3e the earl% reflections 5Dead End7 'his will usuall% use up the allowable amount absorbent and so there is none or little left for the bac# end of the room 5Live End7 'he rear wall, side walls and ceiling 5Live End7 are covered with diffusers to 2rea# up the possible earl% reflections from the rear wall 5the reflection arriving at the listener is smeared in time7 to reduce coloration Eliminate flutter echoes between the side walls +enerall% ma#e sound field more diffuse and provide ambient surround sound A.3.2 Controlled I age Design or !eflection "ree #one Design 4 RFZ design strives to minimi3e the influence of the room acoustic on the sound reproduction and so provide a neutral two channel critical listening room 'he design creates a spatial and temporal reflection free 3one surrounding the primar% mi&ing or listening position5s7 'he 3one is spatial, because it onl% e&ists within a certain area in the roomA and it is temporal, because the interfering reflections are onl% controlled over a certain time window, between the arrival of the direct sound, and prior to reflections arriving from the rest of the room 'he right figure shows the energ% time curves measured before and after treatment in a small critical listening room 4t the top, the direct sound and interfering side wall, floor, ceiling and sparse reflections from the room are identified 'he earl% specular reflections cause coloration, image shifting and broadening of the image width and depth 'he sparse specular reflections from the rear of the room also interfere with the direct sound further colouring the reproduction 'hese problems can be addressed b% controlling the competing earl% reflections from the walls, floor and ceiling b% application of absorbers and diffusers 'his creates an initial time dela% gap before the onset of 4bsorption the reflections from the rear wall forming the reflection free 3one described aboveA this e&tends to roughl% >B ms -f absorption is used, ps%choacoustic e&periments indicate that the sonic images in the soundstage will be e&tremel% small, as if sound comes from a point in space -f diffusers are used, the sonic images ta#e on greater si3e and appear more realistic Following the application of diffusers on the rear wall, the effects of which are

.ontrolled 4bsorption

Diffusers

Room Acoustics, TJC 2003-6, (c) University of Salfor shown in the lower part of the figure, the sparse room reflections more resemble a reverberant field of a larger room, with increased spatial and temporal reflection densit% Csing this techni,ue, it is also possible to create a reverberant sound field with a linear slope /ne of the disadvantages of this approach, is that the sweet spot can be rather small, meaning that onl% the recording engineer gets a high ,ualit% sound, whereas the producer 5at the rear of the room7, hears aberrations because the% are too close to the diffusers Dore modern designs have tended to use a combination of absorbers and diffusers 5h%brid devices7, in an attempt to spatiall% broaden the sweetspot 4nother disadvantage is that there can be considerable variation from room to room * ma#ing mi&ing in multiple studios more difficult 4s well as appl%ing absorption and diffusion to first order reflection paths, it is possible to shape the room to redirect reflections as shown in the figure below

Elevation

Glan

Direct sound

Reflection free 3one

Direct sound

'oda%, with surround sound reproduction formats such as ? > finding acceptance, the concepts are still valid but are emplo%ed differentl% 'he rooms are not polari3ed between live and dead 3ones, and tend to be more uniform, with diffusers being used to enhance the envelopment and immersion of the surround spea#ers and to provide the desired degree of ambience 4bsorbers and diffusers can still control strong specular reflections, which cause spectral and spatial distortion /ne approach to designing a surround critical listening room, suggested b% D)4ntonio, utili3es broadband absorption down to the modal fre,uencies in the corners 5using a combination of membrane and porous absorption7 ?: * >:: mm of absorbers or h%brid surfaces are used on the walls between spea#ers and listener, to control first order reflections, and diffusers are used in the middle of the four walls to enhance envelopment Diffusing clouds, with broad bandwidth absorption down to the modal fre,uencies placed above the listeners, provide surround reflections and additional modal control A.4 Non-environments Non-environments are acousticall% 5almost7 dead spaces designed for control rooms 'he philosoph% grew out of wor# b% @idle% at the end of the >EF:s, but the strongest current advocate of this design is Ghil Newell 'his summar% has been ta#en partl% from Newell)s boo# iv 'he room has high absorbing side and rear walls and ceiling -deall% the absorption should be across the full audio bandwidth 'he front wall is hard and reflective, and the loudspea#ers are mounted into the front wall 'he floor is also hard and reflective 5although sometimes bass floor absorption is used7 'he figures below show a plan and sections 5e&tracted from Newell)s boo#7 'he idea is to replicate 5near7 free field conditions, to monitor the direct sound and nothing else 4n% reflections in the room produce distortions to the signal, so b% removing the room effect, onl% what is on the recording is heard 'his leads the recording engineer to interpret between the dead acoustics of the nonenvironment, and the more reverberant conditions of a t%pical domestic environment @owever, b% removing

Room Acoustics, TJC 2003-6, (c) University of Salfor the control room from the recording chain ensures that none of the control room artefacts 5for e&ample reverberance, modal deca%s, tone coloration7 mas# artefacts of the recording 5for e&ample bad s%nthetic reverberation7 'his reduces uncertaint% in the mi&ing process as ever% detail is as clear as possible 'he sonic images are ver% precise * some sa% unnatural -t also means there is more consistenc% between different non-environment rooms, enabling mi&ing to more easil% ta#e place in different control rooms

'he use of large scale absorption means that the room has to be large to begin with 5and will be much smaller at the endH7 4 variet% of means can be used to produce absorption * such as a combination of resonance and porous absorption 'he designs of Newell use large absorbent louvres * see figures above 'he use of a reflective floor and front wall mean that the space isn)t too unnatural for sound generated b% users of the room 'he loudspea#ers are flush mount in the front wall to reduce reflections from edges 2% placing them on the boundar% also reduces comb filtering between the loudspea#er and the front wall reflection Loudspea#er ,ualit% becomes all important as there is no mas#ing from the room 4s the on-a&is response is onl% being heard, this simplifies loudspea#er design Listening to the direct sound onl% enables phase effects in the recording to be more audible, Some have criticised the approach as leading to overl% reverberant mi&es, but this hasn)t been borne out in practise 'here is a lac# of spaciousness 5which re,uires lateral reflections7, but advocates of the nonenvironment believe that being able to hear the detail is more important than getting the sense of envelopment %ou might get in an IaverageJ listening room Especiall% as an IaverageJ listening room can be headphones, a car or a lounge, so is probabl% a meaningless conceptH -n summar%, advocates of non-environments prefer certaint% and detail over uncontrolled coloration and reverberance from a control room A.5 > Some uestions Kou enter a small cuboid room 5the si3e of a small office7 with bare plastered bric# walls Describe the sound ,ualit% %ou would e&pect if sound is reproduced in such a space (hat causes the poor sound ,ualit%, and how does this relate to human perceptionL 'he owner of the room can not afford specialist acoustic treatment, but intends to furnish the room with normal ever%da% ob0ects 5sofas and chairs, curtains, stereo sound reproduction s%stem etc7 @ow can the room be arranged 5including the furniture7 to improve the sound ,ualit%L (ould %ou recommend the owner to have a wooden floor or carpetL < = 'he Reflection Free Zone is a common listening room design E&plain what 3one is reflection free, how this is achieved and how this helps acoustic ,ualit% !T"e #est stu io control room is a non-environment$, A Stu io %n&ineer (hat is a nonenvironmentL Discuss wh% this studio engineer might prefer a non-environmentL (hat are the disadvantages of using a non-environmentL

Room Acoustics, TJC 2003-6, (c) University of Salfor M .omplete the following table b% producing at least = good and bad points for each t%pe of room! Cntreated room +ood points RFZ Non-environments

2ad points

From 2004 room acoustics exam: <7 a7 .ompare and contrast the design philosophies! Reflection Free Zone and Non-Environments, as the% relate to studio control rooms E&plain in detail! (hat a room sounds li#e without treatment and wh% @ow a small room is treated to achieve the two desired design goals (hat a room sounds li#e after treatment and wh% E&plain the advantages and disadvantages of each approach N<< mar#sO b7 4 studio has dimensions 9m & ?m & = ?m 'he walls and ceiling have an absorption coefficient of : :> at ?::@3, and the floor has a carpet which has an absorption coefficient of : < at ?::@3 4n acoustic absorber is available which has an absorption coefficient of : 9 at ?::@3 @ow much absorbent is re,uired to reduce the reverberation time to a value t%pical of a reflection free 3one control roomL a (hat assumptions have %ou made in %our calculationL b Pustif% %our choice of reverberation time formulation c 4ssuming %our target reverberation time is achieved across a wide fre,uenc% range, above what fre,uenc% would %our reverberation time formulation be validL d (h% might the reverberation time not directl% relate to sub0ectivel% perceived reverberationL (hat might be a better measure and wh%L NB mar#sO 5i7 .onsider the principles behind a reflection free 3one control room for stereo 2riefl% e&plain how these might these be adapted to allow for surround sound reproductionL N= mar#sO Re"erences

A.!

D David and . Davis, I'he LEDE concept for the control of acoustic and ps%choacoustic parameters in recording control rooms,J P 4udio Eng Soc , 28, ?B?-?E?, 5>EB:7 ii G D)4ntonio and P @ Qonnert, I'he RFZ"RG+ approach to control room monitoring,J proc 4udio Eng Soc , Greprint <>?F 5--97, 5/ct >EBM7 iii F 4 Everest, IDaster handboo# of acoustics,J Mth Edition, Dc+raw-@ill, 5<::>7 iv G Newell, IRecording Studio DesignJ Focal Gress, 5<::=7