|
Have
you ever spoken on the telephone to someone who is using a speakerphone?
Chances are that the quality of the signal was not good. It may have sounded as
though they were speaking through a pipe – that "tin can" effect.
Usually it’s not the phone, it’s the room.
Acoustical Panels help prevent
the "tin can" effect.
The
microphones in speakerphones are very sensitive; more sensitive than our ears.
They pick up not only the first incidence of sound, but also the many
successive reflections of that sound as it bounces from the hard surfaces
within the room. You can’t hear it, but the microphones pick it up. The
result is distortion.
This is a smaller scale version of the effect of
announcements we frequently hear in a large space such as an arena, railroad
station or airline terminal. You can hear, but it’s very difficult to
understand. As one word is spoken (usually amplified and delivered through a
loud speaker system) it reflects from the various surfaces in the space and we
hear it again and again. Although at diminishing volume, it overlaps and
interferes with the next word or syllable. Under extreme conditions, you hear
much and understand little.
In a smaller venue, the distortion is hardly
perceivable to the people within the room if at all. Their ears are not that
sensitive. The microphones, however, do pick up those reflections and record
and/or transmit them. That’s why the audio quality on your home video tape
may not be what you heard when you recorded it. Again, it is not the equipment,
but the room.
In a video/conference room this distortion is most always
annoying to the listeners at the remote receiving location and may interfere
with understanding. A reverberation time of less than 0.5 seconds is desirable,
whereas times in excess of one second are typical of untreated
rooms.
Acoustical panels above wainscoting correct
distortion for teleconferencing and
meetings while complementing the design
Acoustical panels correct distortion for
teleconferencing and meetings.
To
correct this, acoustical (sound absorbing) treatments are added to those
surfaces. The walls are the most important surfaces to be treated as they
permit multiple (more than one bounce) reflections. The application of
acoustical panels above chair-rail height usually corrects the problem. The
quantity of those panels, their performance (NRC) and their placement is an
important design consideration.
Acoustical panels correct distortion for teleconferencing and meetings.
|
