Introduction to auditorium acoustics

Room acoustics is one of the areas of acoustics that attracts most interest from the public and from acousticians themselves. It differs from most other fields of acoustics in that sound is considered in its positive aspect: communication, culture, music, whereas in many fields of acoustics it is considered in its negative aspect, i.e. noise that causes discomfort, which unfortunately it often does. We like to associate room acoustics with a long-practiced art form, sometimes shrouded in a certain mystery, as evidenced by the myth of ancient theater acoustics, which some acousticians keep alive. However, however complex the problem of sound propagation in an auditorium may be, and however complex the perceptual phenomena that govern our appreciation of an auditorium, researchers in acoustics – notably W.C. Sabine about a century ago, then the German school over the last 50 years – have developed tools and methods that now enable us to obtain reliable results, when used with the necessary skills.

The aim of this article is to give a brief overview of the theoretical foundations needed to understand the main problems of room acoustics, and to present the modern tools and methods commonly used to control the acoustics of a space.