LAUSR

Fifty-five years ago Leo Beranek introduced the notion of a short initial time delay gap as being essential for acoustic “intimacy.” However, in the authors’ consulting experience, it has become apparent that many problems in concert and recital halls, onstage and in the audience, can be laid at the feet of too much early energy muddying clarity. A layman’s description of the effect might be: “There’s not enough ‘air’ around the sound.” In support of this notion, recent research suggests that excessive early energy is actually the enemy of intimacy, masking the direct sound, modulating the phase of tonal components, inhibiting source localization. This paper presents the results of several listening experiments in halls of various sizes where adding absorption, venting or redirecting energy in specific critical locations dramatically enhanced the perception of both clarity and reverberation for musicians onstage and in the audience. Such methods often challenge traditional musician (and designer?) preconc...