Optimum Room Dimensions and Reverberation Time

Optimum Room Dimensions

In acoustic theory literature, it is often referred to as optimum room ratios in order to avoid standing waves between parallel surfaces.

Optimum room ratios might be something to start with, but yet often not possible to apply due to already existing rooms in which home theaters are commonly designed. Furthermore gives several reasons why room dimensions are not of special interest in sound reproduction in rooms:

  • Rooms are not perfectly rectangular with perfectly reflecting flat walls
  • Room resonances are not equally important
  • Resonances are not equally energized by the loudspeakers
  • The audibility of resonances is always dependent on the listening position

Optimum Reverberation Time

Planning a listening space professionally, routinely starts with measuring the reverberation time (RT) of the room. However, as already mentioned in 2.6, the sound field of a room is not diffuse and therefore an optimum reverberation time does not apply to the proper acoustic design of a home theater.

Yet, it is a way to determine speech intelligibility in a room. A high reverberation time reduces the ability to understand speech in a room and a low reverberation time results in making a room “uncomfortable” for the listener.

It also may be unfavorable in the case of ASW/image broadening since most of the sound in movies is delivered through a single center speaker in the front. In terms of speech intelligibility, a reverberations time within a range of 0.2-0.5 seconds may be a reasonable approach.

Figure 1: Reverberation time dependent on room furnishing.

Most likely achieved through usual home furnishing as shown in figure 1.

Real conditions!

However, this may not apply for designed home theaters where there is no such usual home furnishing and in case of low-frequency absorption. Anyway, one might get the message that reasonable reverberation times can be obtained with little effort and little expense.

477 / 5000 Translation results In this post, we went to the recommendations for optimizing the dimensions of the room and the reverberation time, and examined its considerations. Items needed to mention audio improvements and other parameters will be published in future posts. These items will pave the way for creating a home theater with the highest quality.

The audio products offered in Saba intelligent systems, which include professional speakers and amplifiers and inacoustic 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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