Classroom acoustics 2012: Recent developments, current issues, and field reports

This introductory paper provides an overview of the papers in this session. It showcases important findings of the UK’s Essex Study by David Canning & Adrian James (2012) which confirms large listening benefits for reducing reverberation times (RT) to 0.4 sec or less. The Essex study also found...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2012-09, Vol.132 (3_Supplement), p.2044-2044
Main Authors: Lubman, David, Sutherland, Louis C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:This introductory paper provides an overview of the papers in this session. It showcases important findings of the UK’s Essex Study by David Canning & Adrian James (2012) which confirms large listening benefits for reducing reverberation times (RT) to 0.4 sec or less. The Essex study also found a marked drop in LA90 for occupied classrooms when RT was halved. This introductory paper also briefly reviews the Acoustical Society of America’s initial actions leading to development of the influential ANSI standards on classroom acoustics (S12.60 - 2010/Parts1 and 2), and subsequent outreach actions, including publication of Classroom Acoustics booklets. (Two new booklets, one aimed at Educators and the other aimed at Architects, are being prepared for publication.) Also reviewed is the ongoing struggle to incorporate meaningful noise and reverberation time criteria into design guidelines for the California Collaborative for High Performance Schools, Los Angeles Unified School District, and LEED for Schools. Finally, it shows that noise transients occurring during classroom noise measurements can make quiet classrooms seem misleadingly noisy.
ISSN:0001-4966
1520-8524
DOI:10.1121/1.4755517