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Echoes and Room Flutter

Reflected sounds in a room can cause acoustic defects like echoes, sound foci, dead spots, and flutter echoes. Echoes occur when the difference in path length between the direct sound and reflected sound is over 65 feet, allowing the reflections to be heard separately. Flutter echoes happen between parallel walls where sound reflections bounce back and forth rapidly, sounding like a buzz. Both echoes and flutter echoes can be reduced by adding sound absorption materials to surfaces to lessen reflections, ensuring walls are not perfectly parallel, or using sound diffusers to scatter reflections.

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135 views6 pages

Echoes and Room Flutter

Reflected sounds in a room can cause acoustic defects like echoes, sound foci, dead spots, and flutter echoes. Echoes occur when the difference in path length between the direct sound and reflected sound is over 65 feet, allowing the reflections to be heard separately. Flutter echoes happen between parallel walls where sound reflections bounce back and forth rapidly, sounding like a buzz. Both echoes and flutter echoes can be reduced by adding sound absorption materials to surfaces to lessen reflections, ensuring walls are not perfectly parallel, or using sound diffusers to scatter reflections.

Uploaded by

Rinsha Mg
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ARCHITECTU

RAL
ACOUSTICS

Reflected sounds
can be responsible
for acoustical
defects such as
echoes,sound
foci,dead spots and
room flutters.

o Sound that reaches a


listener in a room by a path
involving reflections from
its boundaries always
travels a greater distance
than does the sound that
comes by the direct path.
o If the difference in these
two path lengths is as
great as 65ft,which
corresponds to a time
difference of about 0.06
second, the delay in the
arrival of the reflected
sound is sufficient to
enable a listener to hear it
as a separate sound ; ie,
the delayed reflection
produces an echo.
o Even when the difference
in the two path lengths is
somewhat less than 65ft ,

echo

A sound reflected off a surface that


arrives at the listener after the direct
sound.
Echoes are reflections that can be
heard distinctly and separately from
the early reflected and reverberant
sound.

o It tends to blur or even mask the


direct sound.
o Delayed reflections are most
detrimental when they are
concentrated or focused on a
highly reflective concave surface.
o In contrast, they are least
damaging when diffused by
convex surfaces.
o Ironically, echoes are most
commonly detected in the front
rows of an auditorium and
onstage. This results from the
front row being farthest from the
rear wall, thus generating the
largest path length difference
between the direct sound and the
sound radiating directly from the
rear wall or the combination of
the ceiling and the rear wall.

Defec
t

Echoe
s

Cause

Solutions

Avoid
unsuitabl
e shape
Unsuitab Make
le shape
offending
surfaces
Remote
highly
reflectin
absorben
g
t
surfaces Providing
rough
and
porous

o Undesirable acoustical phenomena


associated with the shape of a room
is flutter echo.
o It occurs between a pair of parallel
(opposite) walls in a room.
o Most noticeable in rectangular room
when one pair of opposite walls is
smooth and highly reflective and
the other two opposite walls are
treated with absorptive materials.
o A flutter echo can be diagnosed :
hand clap
a sharp hand clap produces a
multiple echo as the impulse is
reflected back and forth between
the pair of reflective walls.
If the distance between these walls
is

>50 ft - flutter is slow, single hand clap


oom
flutter

Walls nearer-the successively


reflected impulses recur more
frequently and the series is
heard as a prominent flutter or
even as a dry rattle.
Parallel walls are 8-10 ft apart
sound of a single pulse like a
hand clap or a snap of fingers
is heard as buzz which dies
away quite rapidly.

o Room flutter frequently occurs in


uncarpeted rooms where the
ceiling and floor are highly
reflective and the walls are
broken with windows , doors,
hangings, pictures etc.
o Troublesome in broadcasting or
sound-recording studios and is
annoying in all speech , music ,
living , or work rooms.
o Flutter echoes can be eliminated
by
avoiding the use of parallel pairs
of walls , or by breaking up the
uniformity of such walls with
doors, windows , book shelves ,
hangings , paintings ,splays or
patches of absorptive materials.
A very small departure from
parallelism between the pair of
flutter producing walls , such as a
change in the direction or slope

Flutter echoes can be


acoustically treated with careful
placement of sound absorption
materials such as foam or wall
panels on the walls or ceiling
tiles, baffles or banners in the
ceiling. The idea here is to
absorb the sound wave at one or
both surfaces and keep that
sound wave from reflecting of the
surface back
towards the noisesource.
Flutter echoes can also be
acoustically treated with the use
of sound diffusers. Sound
diffusers are multi-faceted,
slotted or curved materials that
are reflective in nature and are
designed to scatter or redirect
sound waves.
The sound diffusers can break up
flutter echo within a room by
taking the sound waves and

ACOUSTICAL DESIGNING IN ARCHITECTURE BY JOHN


WILEY & SONS ,INC. , LONDON
http://www.tonywoolf.co.uk/proj-guide-4.htm
http://
www.audiotrends.com.au/sldigital/cms/media/Room_Acoust
ics_Overview_10.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/
07/Sonar_Principle_EN.svg/2000pxSonar_Principle_EN.svg.png

ibliography

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