Worship Space Acoustics

by Kleiner, Mendel; Klepper, David Lloyd; Torres, Rendell

• ISBN13: 9781604270372
• ISBN10: 1604270373
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-08-01
• Publisher: J. Ross Publishing

Summary

Worship Space Acoustics is a guide to the design, construction, and use of religious facilities for optimum acoustics. Part 1 discusses methods and techniques of room optimization, noise and its control as well as sound reinforcement. Part 2 covers the characteristics of religious services and how these are provided for in the acoustic design of synagogues, churches, and mosques.

Author Biography

Mendel Kleiner obtained his Ph.D. in architectural acoustics in 1978 and is currently Professor of Acoustics at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, and in charge of the Chalmers Room Acoustics Group. Dr. Kleiner is responsible for teaching room acoustics, audio, electroacoustics, and ultrasonics in the Chalmers Master Program on Sound and Vibration. He has more than 50 publications, presented keynote lectures and more than 110 papers, has led courses at international conferences on acoustics and noise control, and organized an international conference on acoustics. His main research areas are computer simulation of room acoustics, electroacoustic reverberation enhancement systems, room acoustics of auditoria, sound and vibration measurement technology, product sound quality, and psychoacoustics. Dr. Kleiner is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, the Chair for the Audio Engineering Society's Technical Committee on Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement and on its Standards committee on Acoustics.David Lloyd Klepper, currently a student of Rabbinics at Yeshivat Beit Orot, Jerusalem, Israel, formerly President of Klepper Marshall King, Acoustical Consultants and Adjunct Professor of Architectural Acoustics at City University, New York City, and previously a senior consultant at Bolt Beranek and Newman, with SM and SB degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT. Acoustical Consultant for over 200 worship space buildings, including the National Presbyterian Church, Washington, DC, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, New York City, the Capetown , South Africa, Anglican Cathedral, River Road Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia, Young Israel of Southfield , Michigan, and Boston's Holy Cross Cathedral. Pioneer in application of digital delay and electronic simulation of reverberation in worship spaces, and pew-back speech reinforcement. Author of ôSound Systems for Reverberant Worship Spacesö, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. August 1970, two church acoustics papers, one concert hall paper, and one on safer audio entertainment in automobiles in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Also, ôAcoustical of Assembly Places,ö The Encyclopedia of Architecture, coauthor with Mendel Kleiner of ôSound Amplification Systems,ö the Encyclopedia of Science, 34 other published papers on acoustics, noise control, and electronic sound reinforcement systems. Editor of Sound Reinforcement Anthology I (1978) and Sound Reinforcement Anthology II (1996), Audio Engineering Society, New York City. Fellow of both the Audio Engineering Society and the Acoustical Society of America, and member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering and the American Guild of Organists, received Silver Medal (Berliner Medal) from the AES. Rendell R. Torres is a priest for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York. Before the priesthood, he was a tenure-track professor and director of the Program in Architectural Acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and now continues to serve as an adjunct professor. He obtained his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, his M.S. in engineering acoustics from Penn State University, and his Ph.D. in applied acoustics from Chalmers Tekniska H÷gskola (Chalmers University of Technology) in Gothenburg, Sweden. He pursued research in architectural acoustics and auralization with the Chalmers Room Acoustics Group in Sweden; at the Institute of Technical Acoustics in Aachen, Germany; and with the Acoustics Program at RPI. He has given invited talks on his research for the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), the International Congress on Acoustics (ICA) in Japan and Italy, and the Institute of Acoustics (IoA) in the United Kingdom. He has published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America and in Acustica, the journal of the European Acoustics Association. He is also an active cellist.

Table of Contents

About the Authors	p. xi
Web Added ValueÖ	p. xiii
	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Worship Space Acoustics	p. 1
Fundamentals-Nature of Sound	p. 3
Some Important Properties of Sound	p. 3
Sound Pressure, Sound Pressure Level, and Sound Level	p. 6
Sound Pressure Level and Sound Power	p. 7
Using the Decibel Scale	p. 8
Spectra of Voice and Music	p. 11
Hearing	p. 15
Basic Properties	p. 15
Directional Properties	p. 17
Masking and Critical Bands	p. 18
Hearing Impairment	p. 18
Effects of Masking in Time	p. 21
Room Acoustics Fundamentals	p. 25
Propagation and the Reflection of Sound	p. 25
Outdoor Sound	p. 27
Geometrical Acoustics, Wave Packets, and Sound Rays	p. 28
Reflection of Sound	p. 31
Sound Decay in Rooms and Sabine's Equation	p. 34
Reverberation Time and Reverberation Curves	p. 36
Spatial Properties of Reverberant Sound	p. 36
Loudness of Sounds in Rooms	p. 38
Sound Pressure Level Behavior in Rooms	p. 39
Sound-absorbing Materials	p. 41
Introduction	p. 41
Absorption Coefficient and Absorption Area	p. 41
Porous Absorbers	p. 42
Disadvantages of Porous Sound Absorbers	p. 48
Resonant Absorbers	p. 50
Membrane-type Absorbers	p. 51
Helmholtz Resonators	p. 51
Resonator Panels	p. 52
Adjustable Sound Absorption	p. 53
Sound Absorption by Audience	p. 54
Residual Sound-absorption Area	p. 58
Metrics for Room Acoustics	p. 59
Introduction	p. 59
Impulse Response	p. 59
Reverberation Time	p. 60
Early Decay Times	p. 62
Clarity-Early-to-Reverberant Ratio	p. 62
Initial Time-delay Gap	p. 62
Speech Intelligibility and Articulation	p. 63
Speech Intelligibility Metrics	p. 63
Additional Room Acoustics Metrics	p. 66
Strength Index	p. 66
Bass Ratio	p. 66
Brilliance	p. 67
Lateral Energy Fraction	p. 67
Interaural Cross-correlation	p. 68
Simulation and Prediction	p. 71
Simulation and Prediction in Room Acoustics	p. 71
Ultrasonic Scale Modeling	p. 71
Acoustical Computer-aided Design	p. 73
Auralization	p. 74
Planning for Good Room Acoustics	p. 79
Introduction	p. 79
Psychoacoustics: The Precedence Effect and Binaural Unmasking	p. 81
Seating Area	p. 81
Floor Plans	p. 83
Lengthwise Sections	p. 87
Crosswise Sections	p. 89
Preferred Reverberation Time	p. 91
Coloration	p. 93
Echo	p. 95
Some Sound-reflection Problems	p. 96
Domes and Other Curved Surfaces	p. 96
Whispering Galleries	p. 98
Pillars	p. 99
Annexes and Dual-slope Reverberation Curves	p. 99
Balconies	p. 100
Reflectors	p. 103
Barriers and Mechitzot	p. 104
Diffusers	p. 105
Temporary Structures and Tents	p. 105
Rooms for Speech	p. 108
Rooms for Music	p. 110
General Recommendations	p. 110
Organ Placement	p. 112
Organ and Choir Arrangements	p. 115
Quiet	p. 117
Noise, Annoyance, and Sound Quality	p. 117
Noise Criteria	p. 118
Mechanical Equipment Room and General Isolation	p. 121
Basic Planning	p. 121
Construction and Details	p. 122
Doors	p. 122
Reverberant Sound Reduction	p. 122
Mechanical Shafts and Chases	p. 124
Fan Selection and Sound Output	p. 124
Fan Types	p. 124
Prediction of Fan Sound Power and Calculations for Room Noise Level	p. 124
Silencers	p. 125
Diffusers, Grilles, and Dampers	p. 125
Vibration Isolation	p. 126
Basic Planning	p. 126
Housekeeping Pads	p. 127
Floating Floors and Vibration-isolation Inertia Bases	p. 127
Pipe and Duct Connections	p. 129
Chair-scrape Noise	p. 131
Sound Isolation and Other Noise Issues	p. 133
Sound Transmission	p. 133
Noise Reduction and Sound Transmission Loss	p. 134
Efficient Sound Isolation	p. 136
Effect of Background or Masking Noise	p. 136
Transmission Loss Curves of Typical Walls	p. 137
A Balanced Spectrum Design	p. 138
The Coincidence Effect	p. 139
Average Transmission Loss and Sound Transmission Class	p. 140
Laboratory vs. Field Measurements	p. 141
Effects of Leaks	p. 141
Complex or Double Partitions	p. 142
Control of Flanking Sound Transmission	p. 145
Music Practice and Teaching Facilities	p. 146
Basic Planning	p. 146
Privacy	p. 146
Sound-isolating Windows, Partitions, and Doors	p. 149
Exterior Noise	p. 152
Sound Systems for Clarity and Reverberation	p. 153
Introduction	p. 153
Sound Level Amplification	p. 153
Increased Clarity or Increased Reverberation	p. 154
Frequency Response	p. 155
Freedom from Distortion and Noise	p. 155
Directional Realism	p. 155
Balance between Clarity and Spaciousness/Liveliness	p. 155
Sound System Uses Other than Reinforcement	p. 156
Basic Types of Worship Space Sound Reinforcement Systems	p. 156
Type I: Central Systems	p. 157
Type II: Split Central System	p. 157
Type III: Conventional Distributed Systems	p. 160
Type IV: Pew-back System	p. 162
Type V: Distributed Directional Horn System	p. 164
Type VI: Distributed Delayed Column System	p. 165
Type VII: Horizontal Line Source	p. 166
Equipment	p. 169
Microphones	p. 169
Contact Pick-up Devices	p. 172
Preamplification	p. 173
General Control Equipment	p. 173
Operated vs. Automatic Systems	p. 173
Control Consoles and Mixer Preamplifiers	p. 176
Controls Usually Fixed	p. 177
Location of Controls	p. 177
Delay Equipment	p. 178
Feedback Protection	p. 178
Crossovers	p. 179
Power Amplification	p. 181
Loudspeakers	p. 181
Applications	p. 188
Basic Reinforcement System	p. 188
Archival Recording System	p. 190
Monitoring and Paging Systems	p. 190
Surround and Electronic Reverberation Systems	p. 191
Acoustical Envelope or Stage Communication System	p. 195
Hearing Assistance and Simultaneous Translation	p. 195
Production Communications	p. 195
System Planning and Implementation	p. 196
Design	p. 196
	p. 203
Synagogues	p. 205
History	p. 205
Modern Synagogue Architecture	p. 210
Separation of Sexes: The Mechitzah	p. 214
Small Synagogues	p. 215
Synagogues as Study Halls: Beit Ha-Midrash	p. 216
Jewish Communities	p. 217
Chassidism	p. 218
Reform Movement	p. 219
Conservative Movement	p. 221
Noise Issues	p. 223
Overflow Seating	p. 223
Room Finishes	p. 223
Use of Sound Amplification	p. 224
Summary	p. 226
Churches	p. 227
Introduction	p. 227
Historical Survey of Christian Liturgy	p. 227
Acoustics for Christian Worship	p. 230
Reverberant Acoustics-Roman Catholic Liturgy as an Example	p. 234
Typical Liturgical Music for Reverberant Spaces	p. 234
Acoustics for Liturgy	p. 235
Example Projects: Reverberant/Semi-reverberant Spaces	p. 240
Absorptive Acoustics-Evangelical/Blended Worship as an Example	p. 247
Typical Worship Music in Spaces with Absorptive Acoustics	p. 247
Acoustics for Worship in Absorptive Spaces	p. 248
Example Projects: Absorptive/Semi-absorptive Spaces	p. 249
Summary	p. 254
Mosques	p. 257
Historic Development	p. 257
Worship Characteristics	p. 259
Music in Islamic Worship	p. 260
Mosque Acoustics and Sound Systems	p. 261
Traditional Mosques	p. 261
Contemporary Mosques	p. 264
Noise Control Considerations	p. 268
Minarets	p. 269
Appendix	p. 271
Notes and References	p. 275
Notes and References	p. 285
Index	p. 297
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