“Room Acoustics” is the field of acoustics that describes how sound propagates in a closed or semi-closed space. Each space has its own sound ‘fingerprint’ which affects the quality of a sound, whether this is speech, music or any kind of noise. Room acoustic engineers try to understand the behaviour of sound in spaces and make them suitable for different purposes. A classroom should be well designed for clean speech transmission from the lecturer to the students, while a concert hall should prolong and enrich the sound from an orchestra to make it sound impressive.
Key elements in Room Acoustics are the sources and receivers of sound, the geometry of the closed space (room) and the materials (acoustic properties) of the walls.
In both practicing audiology and speech language pathology, as well as in speech and hearing science research, the space where the work is done is an integral part of the function. Hence, for all of these endeavors it can be important to measure the acoustics of a room. This article provides a tutorial regarding the measurement of room reverberation and background noise, both of which are important when evaluating a space’s strengths and limitations for speech communication. As the privacy of patients and research participants is a primary concern, the tutorial also describes a method for measuring the amount of acoustical insulation provided by a room’s barriers. Several room measurement data sets – all obtained from the assessment of clinical and research spaces within our own department – are presented here as examples.