The efficiency of reverberation time for acoustic in home theater

Reasonable absorption in domestic rooms can be caused by surfaces such as carpets, curtains and perforated acoustical ceilings as well as objects like chairs, sofas, tables or closets, which are absorbing and at the same time scattering to sound.

The influence of small rooms on reflections of sound is substantial when it comes to frequency ranges with wavelengths close to the dimensions of a room. This impact will be discussed and state of the art methods for controlling in particular unwanted reflections in home theaters are shown in this work. As it comes to room resonances at low frequencies the sound ray approach reaches its applicability and the related standing waves can be illustrated best in terms of sound waves.

Furthermore, the late reflections of domestic rooms are remarkably abated with increasing distance from the sound source. Hence, according to Schultz (cited in Toole 63) it is not applicable to apply calculations that are based on diffusivity and the associated Diffuse Field Theory like the use of Sabine’s equation for determining the proper amount of sound-absorbing material.

In conclusion, the sound field in a listening room like in home theaters is considered to be diffuse, therefore, reverberation time is not a useful parameter.

Reverberation Time

Reverberation time is commonly used as a measure for international standards. Nevertheless, in domestic-sized rooms it seems that the reverberation time is not that important to many professionals when it comes to sound reproduction in small rooms. It is still debatable if late-reflected sound has an influence on sound perceived in such environments. In small listening rooms, the sound field mostly comprises the direct sound, strong early reflections and the weak late-reflected sound field.

The directional characteristics of the loudspeaker and the adjacent room boundaries dominate the impression of the listener in terms of the reproduced sound. Reverberation time is not capable to explain any of those effects and therefore not useful as a predictor of how sound will sound as well as perceived by the listener.

What has been said so far and what we will discuss in detail in the future, will pave the way for creating a home theater of the highest quality. The audio products offered in Saba Smart systems, which include Dali speakers, Yamaha amplifiers and inakustik cables with their great variety and high quality, make it possible to implement any type of equipment according to the relevant needs.

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