Acoustics 101
Acoustics are important
(and complicated)
That’s what this is all about. What you need to know, why you should care, and how to improve your acoustic understanding. Whether you’re new to the game or looking to become an acoustical nerd like us, you’re in the right place. If you’re in a hurry, check out our Acoustics 101 Podcast; bite-sized versions of it all on-the-go!Â
What are Acoustics?
It’s a hard question to look at. “Acoustics” explains how sound behaves and interacts with its environment. It’s everywhere all the time, and if left unchecked, it becomes noise, creating an acoustically unstable environment.Â
i.e. What Conwed helps with.Â
What is sound?
Think of “sound” as an all-encompassing term for everything you hear. Anything quiet, loud, good, bad, it’s all sound. We won’t do the “if a tree falls in the forest” bit though.
What is noise?
Noise is any unwanted, unpleasant, or distracting sound. Imagine the kind of echo that makes you immediately exit out of a YouTube video, or the inability to talk to your date at dinner.
Echo
vs
Reverb
Echoes can be a little fun. You shout something, in the distance you hear “another” voice shout it back. Hearing that repetition as a separate sound is the echo. As long as it’s not bothering you, it counts as “sound”.
If you hear that echo begin before you even finish speaking, the original sound and echo now blend together, creating reverb. It makes music at a restaurant feel like noise, but music at a concert hall sound better? How does that work?
Noise = HIPPA Violations
Imagine you’ve just spent an absurd amount of money designing a beautiful new hospital. But the next week your legal team gets hit with a lawsuit due to HIPPA violations. Noise isn’t just something we don’t like, there can even be regulations for it.
Do I have to?
In this case study, we compare two rooms:
one small conference room and a massive gathering hall. Guess which is quieter.
What else can acoustic solutions do?
In this case study, these architects use acoustic clouds for a special purpose. The acoustic performance was just a bonus.Â
How do I calculate noise?
Acoustical math is scaryÂ
The average person can tell when a space is too noisy. But how is that measured, mathematically represented, and what do you with that once you have it?
Things are about to become clear
Articles & case studies
Grab a coffee and dive in.
We know this may sound silly. But they’re not three-hour conversations! Just a few minutes per topic to save you some time.
Enjoy.
Want a hard copy?
Instead of cramming everything into one cumbersome catalog, we broke it down into simple coffee table-sized books.
Reach out and ask!
