CCST9014 Individual Report

3035092870 Chan Ka Hei

Concert Hall Design and Loudspeaker System
Introduction
This report serves to introduce to the read some acoustic considerations in concert hall
design and the construction of a loudspeaker system. Concert hall and loudspeakers
are the primary infrastructure that enables music to be delivered to the mass public.
Therefore, they deserve special attention in order for people to attain maximum
enjoyment of music. In this report, concert hall design will be discussed in two aspects:
shape and materials. Very often these two considerations are entangled, as both the
material choice and shape affects the reverberation of sound waves significantly.
Furthermore, loudspeaker systems are crucial to amplify sound in large theatres to
deliver equal sound to each audience. Synthesizers and its maneuver will be discussed
as to explain how frequencies are selectively magnified to achieve best acoustic effect.
In addition, positions of loudspeakers will also be briefly explained. I hope this text
would cover basic elements in concert hall design, and be a tribute for the great
architects who built great concert halls for our enjoyment.
Shape of concert hall
The shape of a concert hall determines the propagation and reflection of sound.
It is desired that every audience can receive similar quality of sounds. The sound should
be acoustically modified such that it delivers a fullness feeling as well as great
expressions. To achieve the above aims, architects developed a few concert hall
shapes. They are shoebox shape, fan shape and vineyard shape. Also, the shape of the
sound reflectors, (i.e. walls and ceiling) are treated with protruding patterns for acoustic
reasons, which we shall discuss in greater details in the follow section.
Shoebox shape (figure 1) is an old fashion design, yet it is very functional. The
concert in this shape is long, narrow and tall, with two parallel sidewalls. The audiences
are seated in arrays in front of the performers, who usually are orchestras. Parallel
sidewalls in this design are the key acoustic component to its characteristic. Sound
propagates and reflects in a way that the audiences receive lateral reflection of sound.
Lateral reflection (figure 2) refers to that sound reaches at two ears at different time, as
the path to one ear is shorter than the path to the other. Instead of sound reaching at
both ears at the same time from a point source, lateral reflection creates a
psychophysical phenomenon that people has a sense of envelopment. This can
enhance the nuances we perceive in the music, and increase music dynamics. This
design also ensures an even distribution of sound to every seat. With the introduction of
anti-parallelism treatment, such as balconies and protruding patterns, standing waves
and echoes are effectively eliminated to reduce acoustic flaws.
Other designs of concert hall may focus on different aspects. For example, in a
fan shape concert hall, the audiences are arranged in arrays of arcs. This can achieve a
high capacity of audience, however, since lateral reflection is absent in this design,
reverberation time is greatly reduced, and the acoustic quality is compromised. Possibly
this kind of concert hall will create echoes as sound reflected from the rear wall may be
significantly delayed due to long travelling distance. To slightly alleviate the problem,
some architects may adopt the vineyard hall design. This is similar to the fan shape, yet
audiences surround the performers, in which an intimate physical relationship between
the performer and audience as well as a better sightline is achieved. In addition, large

partial walls are introduced to create lateral reflection in some area. Although the
acoustic experience is slightly enhanced by the vineyard hall design compared to the
fan shape hall, equally good quality of sound is still not guaranteed.
The ceiling of a concert hall always serves as a sound reflector, and they serves
for importance purposes such as to distribute sound equally to all seats, build sense of
envelopment and increase reverberation time. Some very notable design elements are
present in order to achieve maximum acoustic experience. First, it is the shape or
ceiling. A concave shape (figure 3) of ceiling would focus the sound emitted from the
stage, so architects always avoid it. Instead, fragmented reflection (figure 4) is often
introduced to create scattered diffusion to a variation of directions, which would provide
a uniform sound field. Since there may be a long distance between the audience and
the performer, so the reflection from the ceiling itself may not be sufficient. A suspended
reflector (figure 5) will be then installed in the hall to reduce the sound travelling
distance to increase the amplitude of sound reaching the back of the hall.

figure 1 Stadthalle Wuppertal (a shoebox shaped concert hall)

figure 2 lateral reflection

figure 4 fragmented reflection

figure 3 comparison of convex, flat, and concave ceiling respectively

figure 5 suspended reflector

Materials of concert hall
Materials used are basically divided into two parts. One is for isolating the
concert hall from the ambient, such that the concert hall meets the NC25 standard.
(figure 6) (Noise-Criterion, a standard that addresses the noise level of each frequency)
Another is the acoustic part. This part is much more complicated, and we shall focus our
attention here.
The material used in a concert hall is divided into several parts by their position
and function. They are sidewalls, back walls and seats.
Sidewalls and ceilings are usually made of thick plasters, around 2 inches, such
that they from a rigid and stiff structure to reflect sound well. Other materials, such as
wood, or gypsum board are also used, though not as preferred as plaster. These softer
materials are laminated to provide the necessary stiffness. If the sidewalls are not stiff,
they will absorb low frequency sounds, because that the energy of the sound wave will
be lose in the conformational change of these soft material when the wave is contact of
the wall. In addition, the sidewalls usually have patterns to perturb sound waves as to
diffuse them naturally. However, sidewalls materials shouldnt be porous, as porous wall
will absorb mid-high frequencies.
Back walls, on the other hand, are designed to not reflect sound, otherwise there
will be unwanted echoes. Back walls are usually made with softer materials that absorb
sounds, such as porous masonry. Typically they have soft finishes.

The seats and carpets are soft in nature, and inevitably

they absorb a great amount of sound. To alleviate the
problem, empty-seat sound absorption are designed to
match with the one of seated-seat, this create a more
natural and invariant reverberation.
figure 6 Noise Criterion
Loudspeaker system
Apart from those architectural factors that mainly
affect the acoustic effect of a concert hall, there are
sometimes, when sound amplification must be done in
electronic way. Therefore, a loudspeaker system is also a
great concern in concert hall design. There are three
parts of the system: sound detection, signal processing, and sound propagation. For the
detection, there are usually different microphones to handle. However, there might be a
problem of collecting sounds from the loudspeaker itself, which will create unwanted
echoes. To completely solve this problem, an equalizer is used in the signal processing
stage. Basically the equalizer can break down the sound wave into different simple
parts of different frequency range. And then each frequency range is amplified or
diminished to suit the purpose. For example, if the performer is a singer, then the
equalizer can boost the human voice while diminishes other noise. The last part of a
loudspeaker system is the amplification of sounds. A number of speakers is positioned
in a way that the sound is diffused naturally to the audience, and often this is already
considered in the concert hall design. For an example, if a stereo effect is desired, at
least two speakers will be positioned in the sidewalls while a speaker will sit at the
central.
Reference
http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_info/concert_hall_acoustics/?content=shap
e University of Salford Manchester, 5th Dec 2014
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/nc-noise-criterion-d_725.html The Engineering
Toolbox, 5th Dec 2014
David McCandless
http://www.jeacoustics.com/library/pdf/ConSpec_Apr90_Concert_Halls.pdf 14th Nov
2014
Yuezhe Zhao, Shuoxian Wu, Acoustical Design for Concert Hall in the Science and Art
Centre of Xiamen University, State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Sciences,
South China University of Technology, 14th Nov 2014
Ptynen, Jukka, et al. "Concert halls with strong lateral reflections enhance musical
dynamics." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111.12 (2014): 44094414.