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Public spaces impact the lives of many
people at once. This
increases the importance of favorable room acoustics. HFP has extensive experience in public venues such as
convention centers, places of worship, performance halls, movie
theaters, auditoriums, stadiums, arenas, and fitness centers. We have worked with the unique challenges associated with
each space, adding to our extensive base of experience.
Desirable qualities in public spaces
usually include good speech intelligibility. In some rooms, there is also a need for good to excellent
musical response (depending on the room). However, characteristics common to large volume rooms
include long reverberation times, poor impulse response, and a
tendency to sound “shrill” if proper diffusion is not
present. These can
lead to low speech intelligibility, “muddy” sounding music,
and natural acoustics that lack “warmth”. |
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Medium and small rooms can be easier to
treat acoustically but may have their own special needs. Movie theaters, for instance, require extremely short
reverberation times so that the surround sound system can
achieve its desired effects.
Acoustical consulting should ideally take
place in the design phase of the project to ensure an efficient
solution that works well with the aesthetics and audio-visual
system, if any. Realizing
that this is not always the case, HFP works pre- or
post-construction to help ensure a favorable natural acoustical
environment. We
perform any required diagnostic work on site and create 3-D
acoustical computer models for predictive analyses. Our models can vary from general room acoustical
calculations to in-depth impulse response studies. We can also create auralizations that allow our clients
to actually hear audio demonstrations of room reverberation
characteristics with different acoustical treatments applied in
the computer model. |
