Reverb time measurement

edited December 1969 in SignalScope
Is it possible to measure the reverb time (T20 or T30), or are there any plans to develop this function?
I work as an acoustic consultant with building acoustics, and it would be nice to have this function.

Comments

  • perkare,

    We do plan to offer additional tools that will be of interest to acoustical consultants. Please subscribe to the mailing lists to be notified of product updates and new product announcements.

    Ben
  • Would it be possible to get repeatable (if not exact RT60) times by doing something similar to what Wallace Clement Sabine did - play a short sound and then measure the time till it decays, in this case using the trigger mode in SignalScope? I've tried this with a hand clap and get what looks like a useful waveform.

    I'm a non-professional working to come up with ways to mitigate noise and reverberation in a large room in a over 55 community where I live. Previously a consultant calculated (not measured) RT60 to be 3.0 seconds. I assume measuring this parameter is the best way to judge the effects of changes to the room. I would like to be able to do it with my iPhone. I currently have SoundMeter and SignalScope and most likely will soon purchase SignalSuite. (They are all great products and blow people away when I show them it's on my phone).

    SoundMeter has been extremely useful to measure noise levels and resulting signal (speech) to noise ratios. I think being able to measure Reverberation Time in the empty room (no people) would be more useful since there are no unknown or uncontrollable variables (number of people in the room, etc.).

    As our budget is very limited, we are not able to implement the $33,000 recommendations of the the consultant, but would like to try incremental solutions and then measure something like RT60 to see if there are improvements - rather than relying completely on subjective evaluations.

    I would appreciate any comments or pointers to reference materials on this subject.
  • Would it be possible to get repeatable (if not exact RT60) times by doing something similar to what Wallace Clement Sabine did - play a short sound and then measure the time till it decays, in this case using the trigger mode in SignalScope? I've tried this with a hand clap and get what looks like a useful waveform.

    You could certainly use Sabine's approach.  However, the trick with using SignalScope, is that you would need to square the resulting waveform and then convert it to dB.  Since there is not currently a way to get the waveform data out of SignalScope and onto your Mac or PC, it would not be very convenient.

    SoundMeter could be used, but it would have its own challenges. In particular, it would be more subject to human error.
    Previously a consultant calculated (not measured) RT60 to be 3.0 seconds. I assume measuring this parameter is the best way to judge the effects of changes to the room.

    I would definitely recommend doing your best to come up with a consistent, repeatable measurement method to quantify changes to the room acoustics.
    I think being able to measure Reverberation Time in the empty room (no people) would be more useful since there are no unknown or uncontrollable variables (number of people in the room, etc.).

    Absolutely. Having people in the room will definitely affect the room's behavior, but you want to have as few variables as possible when determining the effects of your treatments.
    They are all great products and blow people away when I show them it's on my phone

    Thank you for your feedback!

    Ben


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