[fado]

Go to:

  http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/27/europe/rob-harris-acoustic-designer/index.html

[JLM]

Hopefully a science of hall acoustics design will come about.  For now it is a very expensive trial and error process.

The main concert hall in Toronto has clear panels suspended above the stage that can be raised and lowered, supposedly to adjust the room acoustics for audience size and type of performance. 

Residentially sized room acoustics for listening to performances and hall acoustics for housing live performances are two very different things.   In the second, the hall effects become a partner, adding to the performance.  In the first, room effects become a distraction from the performance.

[JWL.GIK]

I think a lot of people would say that there is definitely a science of acoustic hall design presently. In part because a lot of designs have been tried, with errors noted and understood. 

You are right that small rooms require very different treatment strategies than large rooms. On example is in a small room, the Schroeder frequency is much higher up in the bass range, where there is much more musical energy in most music.

[rollo]

   Would a scaled down version of a concert hall be a good thing for a home audio system ? If designing and building a dedicated listening room would a scaled down version work ?


charles

[JWL.GIK]

It may not be a bad idea in terms of room size and shape, but generally the treatment strategies are quite different.

Think of it this way: sound travels roughly 1 foot per millisecond. In small rooms, this means we are generally hearing first reflections within 20-30ms of the source, which is close enough in time that we generally don't perceive distinct echoes. Instead we can hear the artifacts such as comb filtering and other nasties.

In a concert hall, however, we may not hear an early reflection for 50-100ms or even more. Since sound goes down 6dB every time you double the distance, the reflections will also be much softer, in addition to being further back in time.

Also, for the larger room, the modal issues will be so low in frequency to not be much concern, unlike a smaller household room where the resonances are higher and within the audible bass range.

Generally for larger rooms it's more about controlling reverb time, whereas in smaller rooms it's more about bass trapping and early reflection management. In both large and small rooms creating a pleasing ambiance is also important.