Worship Space Acoustics

By Mendel Kleiner, David Lloyd Klepper and Rendell R. Torres

Hardcover, 6x9, 328 pages

ISBN: 978-1-60427-037-2

August 2010

A Title in J. Ross Publishing's Acoustics: Information and Communication Series

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Read the Reviews “This much needed book on the acoustics of worship spaces has been produced by three widely-experienced authors and is worthy of consideration by architects, acousticians, builders, administrators and anyone interested in the history or construction of spaces for worship.” --Leo L. Beranek, former MIT professor and a founder and former president of Bolt, Beranek and Newman (now BBN Technologies)
About the Item Worship Space Acoustics is a unique guide to the design, construction, and use of religious facilities for optimum acoustics. The book is divided into two parts: Part I discusses methods and techniques of room optimization, including how the acoustics of large and small spaces are designed, implemented, and adjusted; how acoustical privacy is attained; noise and its control; sound reinforcement; and numerical and physical modeling techniques. Part II provides the architect, student, and lay person a review of the characteristics of the religious services pertinent to various beliefs and how these are provided for in the acoustic design of spaces in churches, mosques, and synagogues.
Key Features Covers the design, construction, and use of religious facilities for optimum acoustics Presents the historical background to existing practice, problems, and solutions, to deepen understanding for those involved in design, construction and use Illustrates both the similarities and differences between facilities for different religious groups WAV^TM offers downloadable noise control calculations for office air supply systems, guidance for churches and non-Orthodox synagogues in choosing an organ, an example in the use of Performance History Database (PHD) software, and more — available from the Web Added Value^TM Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com
About the Author(s) Mendel Kleiner obtained his Ph.D. in architectural acoustics in 1978 and is currently Professor of Acoustics at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, and in charge of the Chalmers Room Acoustics Group. Dr. Kleiner is responsible for teaching room acoustics, audio, electroacoustics, and ultrasonics in the Chalmers Master Program on Sound and Vibration. He has more than 50 publications, presented keynote lectures and more than 110 papers, has led courses at international conferences on acoustics and noise control, and organized an international conference on acoustics. His main research areas are computer simulation of room acoustics, electroacoustic reverberation enhancement systems, room acoustics of auditoria, sound and vibration measurement technology, product sound quality, and psychoacoustics. Dr. Kleiner is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, the Chair for the Audio Engineering Society’s Technical Committee on Acoustics and Sound Reinforcement and on its Standards committee on Acoustics. David Lloyd Klepper is currently a student of Rabbinics at Yeshivat Beit Orot, Jerusalem, Israel. He was formerly President of Klepper Marshall King Acoustical Consultants, an Adjunct Professor of Architectural Acoustics at City University, New York City, and a senior consultant at Bolt Beranek and Newman. Mr. Klepper also has SM and SB degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT. He has been an acoustical consultant for over 200 worship space buildings, including the National Presbyterian Church, Washington, DC; St. Thomas Church, New York City; the Capetown , South Africa, Anglican Cathedral; River Road Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia; Young Israel of Southfield, Michigan; and Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston. He is a pioneer in the application of digital delay and electronic simulation of reverberation in worship spaces and in pew-back speech reinforcement. Mr. Klepper is the author of 37 published papers on acoustics, noise control, and electronic sound reinforcement systems. He was the Editor of Sound Reinforcement Anthology I and Sound Reinforcement Anthology II from the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and is a Fellow of both the AES and the Acoustical Society of America, a member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering and the American Guild of Organists, and has received the Silver Medal (Berliner Medal) from the AES. Rendell R. Torres is a priest for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York. Before the priesthood, he was a tenure-track professor and director of the Program in Architectural Acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and now continues to serve as an adjunct professor. He obtained his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, his M.S. in engineering acoustics from Penn State University, and his Ph.D. in applied acoustics from Chalmers Tekniska Högskola (Chalmers University of Technology) in Gothenburg, Sweden. He pursued research in architectural acoustics and auralization with the Chalmers Room Acoustics Group in Sweden; at the Institute of Technical Acoustics in Aachen, Germany; and with the Acoustics Program at RPI. He has given lectures on his research for the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), the International Congress on Acoustics (ICA) in Japan and Italy, and the Institute of Acoustics (IoA) in the United Kingdom. He has been published in the Journal of the ASA and in Acustica, the journal of the European Acoustics Association. He is also an active cellist.
Table of Contents Introduction Part I: Acoustics and Sound Systems 1. Fundamentals - Nature of Sound 1.1 Some important properties of sound 1.2 Sound pressure, sound pressure level and sound level 1.3 Sound pressure level and sound power 1.4 Using the decibel scale 1.5 Spectra of voice and music 2. Hearing 2.1 Basic properties 2.2 Directional properties 2.3 Masking and critical bands 2.4 Hearing impairment 2.5 Effects of masking in time 3. Room Acoustics Fundamentals 3.1 Propagation and reflection of sound 3.2 Sound out-of-doors 3.3 Geometrical acoustics, wave packets and sound rays 3.4 Reflection of sound 3.5 Sound decay in rooms and Sabine’s equation 3.6 Reverberation time and reverberation curves 3.7 Spatial properties of reverberant sound 3.8 Loudness of sounds in rooms 3.9 Sound pressure level behavior in rooms 4. Sound-Absorption and Sound-Absorbers 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Sound-absorption coefficient and sound-absorption area 4.3 Porous sound-absorbers 4.4 Resonant sound-absorbers 4.5 Adjustable sound-absorption 4.6 Sound-absorption by audience 4.7 Residual sound-absorption 5. Metrics for Room Acoustics 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Impulse response 5.3 Reverberation time, RT 5.4 Early decay time 5.5 Clarity - early to reverberant ratio 5.6 Initial time delay gap 5.7 Speech intelligibility and articulation 5.8 Speech intelligibility metrics 5.9 Additional room acoustics metrics 6. Simulation and Prediction 6.1 Simulation and prediction in room acoustics 6.2 Ultrasonic scale modeling 6.3 Acoustical computer aided design 6.4 Auralization 7. Planning for Good Room Acoustics 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The “law of the first wave front” and binaural unmasking 7.3 Preferred reverberation time 7.4 Coloration 7.5 Echo 7.6 Some sound-reflection problems 7.7 Annexes and dual slope reverberation curves 7.8 Balconies 7.9 Reflectors 7.10 Barriers and mechitzot 7.11 Diffusers 7.12 Temporary structures, tents 7.13 Rooms for speech 7.14 Rooms for music 8. Quiet 8.1 Noise, annoyance, and sound quality 8.2 Noise criteria 8.3 Mechanical equipment room and general isolation 8.4 Fan selection and sound output 8.5 Vibration isolation 9. Sound Isolation 9.1 Sound transmission 9.2 Noise reduction and sound transmission loss 9.3 Efficient sound isolation 9.4 Effect of background or masking noise 9.5 Transmission loss curves of typical walls 9.6 A balanced spectrum design 9.7 The coincidence effect 9.8 Average transmission loss and “sound transmission class,” “stc” 9.9 Laboratory vs. field measurements 9.10 Effects of leaks 9.11 Double and more complex partitions 9.12 Control of flanking sound transmission 9.13 Music practice and teaching facilities 9.14 Sound isolating windows, partitions, and doors 9.15 Exterior noise 10. Sound Systems for Clarity and Reverberation 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Basic types of worship space sound reinforcement systems 10.3 Equipment 10.4 Applications 10.5 System planning and implementation Part II: Synagogues, Churches, and Mosques Synagogues 1. History 2. Modern synagogue architecture 3. Separation of sexes, the mehizah 4. Small synagogues 5. Synagogues as study halls, beit ha-midrash 6. Communities within the Jewish people 7. Chassidism 8. The reform movement 9. The conservative movement 10. Noise issues 11. Overflow seating 12. Room finishes 13. Use of sound amplification 14. Summary Churches 1. Introduction 2. Historical survey of Christian liturgy 3. Acoustics for Christian worship 4. Reverberant acoustics - Roman Catholic liturgy as an example 5. Typical liturgical music for reverberant spaces 6. Acoustics for liturgy in reverberant spaces 7. Examples: reverberant/semi-reverberant spaces 8. Absorptive acoustics - evangelical/blended worship as examples 9. Typical worship music in absorptive spaces having absorptive acoustics 10. Acoustics for worship in absorptive spaces 11. Examples: absorptive/semi-absorptive spaces 12. Summary Mosques 1. Historical development 2. Worship characteristics 3. Music in Islamic culture 4. Mosque acoustics and sound systems 5. Noise control considerations 6. Minarets Appendix: Calculation of Reverberation Time Index