Worship space acoustics

Worship Space Acoustics is a unique guide to the design, construction, and use of religious facilities for optimum acoustics. The book is divided into two parts: Part I discusses methods and techniques of room optimization, including how the acoustics of large and small spaces are designed, implemented, and adjusted; how acoustical privacy is attained; noise and its control; sound reinforcement; and numerical and physical modeling techniques. Part II provides the architect, student, and lay person a review of the characteristics of the religious services pertinent to various beliefs and how these are provided for in the acoustic design of spaces in churches, mosques, and synagogues.

Author Notes

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 is currently a student of Rabbinics at Yeshivat Beit Orot, Jerusalem, Israel. He was formerly President of Klepper Marshall King Acoustical Consultants, an Adjunct Professor of Architectural Acoustics at City University, New York City, and a senior consultant at Bolt Beranek and Newman. Mr. Klepper also has SM and SB degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT. He has been an acoustical consultant for over 200 worship space buildings, including the National Presbyterian Church, Washington, DC; St. Thomas Church, New York City; the Capetown , South Africa, Anglican Cathedral; River Road Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia; Young Israel of Southfield, Michigan; and Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston. He is a pioneer in the application of digital delay and electronic simulation of reverberation in worship spaces and in pew-back speech reinforcement. Mr. Klepper is the author of 37 published papers on acoustics, noise control, and electronic sound reinforcement systems. He was the Editor of Sound Reinforcement Anthology I and Sound Reinforcement Anthology II from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and is a Fellow of both the AES and the Acoustical Society of America, a member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering and the American Guild of Organists, and has received the 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 Hagskola (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 lectures 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 been published in the Journal of the ASA and in Acustica, the journal of the European Acoustics Association. He is also an active cellist.

About the Authors	p. xi
Web Added ValueÖ	p. xiii
Part I p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Worship Space Acoustics	p. 1
Chapter 1 Fundamentals-Nature of Sound	p. 3
1.1 Some Important Properties of Sound	p. 3
1.2 Sound Pressure, Sound Pressure Level, and Sound Level	p. 6
1.3 Sound Pressure Level and Sound Power	p. 7
1.4 Using the Decibel Scale	p. 8
1.5 Spectra of Voice and Music	p. 11
Chapter 2 Hearing	p. 15
2.1 Basic Properties	p. 15
2.2 Directional Properties	p. 17
2.3 Masking and Critical Bands	p. 18
2.4 Hearing Impairment	p. 18
2.5 Effects of Masking in Time	p. 21
Chapter 3 Room Acoustics Fundamentals	p. 25
3.1 Propagation and the Reflection of Sound	p. 25
3.2 Outdoor Sound	p. 27
3.3 Geometrical Acoustics, Wave Packets, and Sound Rays	p. 28
3.4 Reflection of Sound	p. 31
3.5 Sound Decay in Rooms and Sabine's Equation	p. 34
3.6 Reverberation Time and Reverberation Curves	p. 36
3.7 Spatial Properties of Reverberant Sound	p. 36
3.8 Loudness of Sounds in Rooms	p. 38
3.9 Sound Pressure Level Behavior in Rooms	p. 39
Chapter 4 Sound-absorbing Materials	p. 41
4.1 Introduction	p. 41
4.2 Absorption Coefficient and Absorption Area	p. 41
4.3 Porous Absorbers	p. 42
4.3.1 Disadvantages of Porous Sound Absorbers	p. 48
4.4 Resonant Absorbers	p. 50
4.4.1 Membrane-type Absorbers	p. 51
4.4.2 Helmholtz Resonators	p. 51
4.4.3 Resonator Panels	p. 52
4.5 Adjustable Sound Absorption	p. 53
4.6 Sound Absorption by Audience	p. 54
4.7 Residual Sound-absorption Area	p. 58
Chapter 5 Metrics for Room Acoustics	p. 59
5.1 Introduction	p. 59
5.2 Impulse Response	p. 59
5.3 Reverberation Time	p. 60
5.4 Early Decay Times	p. 62
5.5 Clarity-Early-to-Reverberant Ratio	p. 62
5.6 Initial Time-delay Gap	p. 62
5.7 Speech Intelligibility and Articulation	p. 63
5.8 Speech Intelligibility Metrics	p. 63
5.9 Additional Room Acoustics Metrics	p. 66
5.9.1 Strength Index	p. 66
5.9.2 Bass Ratio	p. 66
5.10 Brilliance	p. 67
5.10.1 Lateral Energy Fraction	p. 67
5.10.2 Interaural Cross-correlation	p. 68
Chapter 6 Simulation and Prediction	p. 71
6.1 Simulation and Prediction in Room Acoustics	p. 71
6.2 Ultrasonic Scale Modeling	p. 71
6.3 Acoustical Computer-aided Design	p. 73
6.4 Auralization	p. 74
Chapter 7 Planning for Good Room Acoustics	p. 79
7.1 Introduction	p. 79
7.2 Psychoacoustics: The Precedence Effect and Binaural Unmasking	p. 81
7.3 Seating Area	p. 81
7.4 Floor Plans	p. 83
7.5 Lengthwise Sections	p. 87
7.6 Crosswise Sections	p. 89
7.7 Preferred Reverberation Time	p. 91
7.8 Coloration	p. 93
7.9 Echo	p. 95
7.10 Some Sound-reflection Problems	p. 96
7.10.1 Domes and Other Curved Surfaces	p. 96
7.10.2 Whispering Galleries	p. 98
7.10.3 Pillars	p. 99
7.11 Annexes and Dual-slope Reverberation Curves	p. 99
7.12 Balconies	p. 100
7.13 Reflectors	p. 103
7.14 Barriers and Mechitzot	p. 104
7.15 Diffusers	p. 105
7.16 Temporary Structures and Tents	p. 105
7.17 Rooms for Speech	p. 108
7.18 Rooms for Music	p. 110
7.18.1 General Recommendations	p. 110
7.18.2 Organ Placement	p. 112
7.18.3 Organ and Choir Arrangements	p. 115
Chapter 8 Quiet	p. 117
8.1 Noise, Annoyance, and Sound Quality	p. 117
8.2 Noise Criteria	p. 118
8.3 Mechanical Equipment Room and General Isolation	p. 121
8.3.1 Basic Planning	p. 121
8.3.2 Construction and Details	p. 122
8.3.3 Doors	p. 122
8.3.4 Reverberant Sound Reduction	p. 122
8.3.5 Mechanical Shafts and Chases	p. 124
8.4 Fan Selection and Sound Output	p. 124
8.4.1 Fan Types	p. 124
8.4.2 Prediction of Fan Sound Power and Calculations for Room Noise Level	p. 124
8.4.3 Silencers	p. 125
8.4.4 Diffusers, Grilles, and Dampers	p. 125
8.5 Vibration Isolation	p. 126
8.5.1 Basic Planning	p. 126
8.5.2 Housekeeping Pads	p. 127
8.5.3 Floating Floors and Vibration-isolation Inertia Bases	p. 127
8.5.4 Pipe and Duct Connections	p. 129
8.5.5 Chair-scrape Noise	p. 131
Chapter 9 Sound Isolation and Other Noise Issues	p. 133
9.1 Sound Transmission	p. 133
9.2 Noise Reduction and Sound Transmission Loss	p. 134
9.3 Efficient Sound Isolation	p. 136
9.4 Effect of Background or Masking Noise	p. 136
9.5 Transmission Loss Curves of Typical Walls	p. 137
9.6 A Balanced Spectrum Design	p. 138
9.7 The Coincidence Effect	p. 139
9.8 Average Transmission Loss and Sound Transmission Class	p. 140
9.9 Laboratory vs. Field Measurements	p. 141
9.10 Effects of Leaks	p. 141
9.11 Complex or Double Partitions	p. 142
9.12 Control of Flanking Sound Transmission	p. 145
9.13 Music Practice and Teaching Facilities	p. 146
9.13.1 Basic Planning	p. 146
9.13.2 Privacy	p. 146
9.14 Sound-isolating Windows, Partitions, and Doors	p. 149
9.15 Exterior Noise	p. 152
Chapter 10 Sound Systems for Clarity and Reverberation	p. 153
10.1 Introduction	p. 153
10.1.1 Sound Level Amplification	p. 153
10.1.2 Increased Clarity or Increased Reverberation	p. 154
10.1.3 Frequency Response	p. 155
10.1.4 Freedom from Distortion and Noise	p. 155
10.1.5 Directional Realism	p. 155
10.1.6 Balance between Clarity and Spaciousness/Liveliness	p. 155
10.1.7 Sound System Uses Other than Reinforcement	p. 156
10.2 Basic Types of Worship Space Sound Reinforcement Systems	p. 156
10.2.1 Type I: Central Systems	p. 157
10.2.2 Type II: Split Central System	p. 157
10.2.3 Type III: Conventional Distributed Systems	p. 160
10.2.4 Type IV: Pew-back System	p. 162
10.2.5 Type V: Distributed Directional Horn System	p. 164
10.2.6 Type VI: Distributed Delayed Column System	p. 165
10.2.7 Type VII: Horizontal Line Source	p. 166
10.3 Equipment	p. 169
10.3.1 Microphones	p. 169
10.3.2 Contact Pick-up Devices	p. 172
10.3.3 Preamplification	p. 173
10.3.4 General Control Equipment	p. 173
10.3.5 Operated vs. Automatic Systems	p. 173
10.3.6 Control Consoles and Mixer Preamplifiers	p. 176
10.3.7 Controls Usually Fixed	p. 177
10.3.8 Location of Controls	p. 177
10.3.9 Delay Equipment	p. 178
10.3.10 Feedback Protection	p. 178
10.3.11 Crossovers	p. 179
10.3.12 Power Amplification	p. 181
10.3.13 Loudspeakers	p. 181
10.4 Applications	p. 188
10.4.1 Basic Reinforcement System	p. 188
10.4.2 Archival Recording System	p. 190
10.4.3 Monitoring and Paging Systems	p. 190
10.4.4 Surround and Electronic Reverberation Systems	p. 191
10.4.5 Acoustical Envelope or Stage Communication System	p. 195
10.4.6 Hearing Assistance and Simultaneous Translation	p. 195
10.4.7 Production Communications	p. 195
10.5 System Planning and Implementation	p. 196
10.5.1 Design	p. 196
Part II p. 203
Synagogues	p. 205
S.1 History	p. 205
S.2 Modern Synagogue Architecture	p. 210
S.3 Separation of Sexes: The Mechitzah	p. 214
S.4 Small Synagogues	p. 215
S.5 Synagogues as Study Halls: Beit Ha-Midrash	p. 216
S.6 Jewish Communities	p. 217
S.7 Chassidism	p. 218
S.8 Reform Movement	p. 219
S.9 Conservative Movement	p. 221
S.10 Noise Issues	p. 223
S.11 Overflow Seating	p. 223
S.12 Room Finishes	p. 223
S.13 Use of Sound Amplification	p. 224
S.14 Summary	p. 226
Churches	p. 227
C.1 Introduction	p. 227
C.2 Historical Survey of Christian Liturgy	p. 227
C.3 Acoustics for Christian Worship	p. 230
C.4 Reverberant Acoustics-Roman Catholic Liturgy as an Example	p. 234
C.4.1 Typical Liturgical Music for Reverberant Spaces	p. 234
C.4.2 Acoustics for Liturgy	p. 235
C.4.3 Example Projects: Reverberant/Semi-reverberant Spaces	p. 240
C.5 Absorptive Acoustics-Evangelical/Blended Worship as an Example	p. 247
C.5.1 Typical Worship Music in Spaces with Absorptive Acoustics	p. 247
C.5.2 Acoustics for Worship in Absorptive Spaces	p. 248
C.5.3 Example Projects: Absorptive/Semi-absorptive Spaces	p. 249
C.6 Summary	p. 254
Mosques	p. 257
M.1 Historic Development	p. 257
M.2 Worship Characteristics	p. 259
M.3 Music in Islamic Worship	p. 260
M.4 Mosque Acoustics and Sound Systems	p. 261
M.4.1 Traditional Mosques	p. 261
M.4.2 Contemporary Mosques	p. 264
M.5 Noise Control Considerations	p. 268
M.6 Minarets	p. 269
Appendix	p. 271
Part I Notes and References	p. 275
Part II Notes and References	p. 285
Index	p. 297

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