Acoustics: Beyond Mythology Sep 13, 2011 1:23 PM, Provided by
InfoComm International Like no other, the field of acoustics is
rife with myth, misinformation, and marketing tactics that
belies the true science and legacy of the trade. Acousticians
and acoustical experts have backgrounds rooted in math and
science, and they spend years studying and honing their craft.
Today, acousticians and acoustical experts work on venues as
diverse as classrooms, houses of worship, performance centers,
courtrooms, broadcast, and recording studios. “The motto at my
firm is: We always design the third sound system. Acoustics is
often an afterthought. It's a three-hour elective in
architectural school,” says Ken Dickensheets, principal of
Dickensheets Design Associates in Austin, Texas. “The biggest
change to this job has been the computational and data
collecting tools available to us today. It used to take hours of
work to capture and analyze the reverberation time of a room.
Now you can see data in different output forms in