Is darko wrong about reverb time or is it me

[MF 1000]

It depends what exactly you mean by ‘useful reverb’ - we are discussing sound reflection decay time, and maybe you are discussing something else.

An ordinary furnished room is likely to have an excessive RT60 time. I don’t personally think RT60 is all that useful as there is more to treating a room than just ensuring it is below 600 ms or whatever anyway.

I recall watching a program about sound (A Sound Odessy I think it was called) and they took a film crew inside a decommissioned ww2 oil storage ‘tank’ at Inchdown near Invergorden. They are inside a mountainside and the concrete has heavily absorbed the heavy fuel oil that was stored in them making the surfaces totally inert and perfect reflectors as far as sound is concerned



at 112 seconds it’s the worlds longest reverb time ….and has no furniture or carpets/curtains in it ….QED

 

[Man in a van]

I just clap my hands

ronnie

 

[Pedro2]

I just clap my hands

ronnie

Or the sound of one hand clapping

 

[Tony_J]

I just clap my hands

ronnie

Do you shout Hallelujah at the same time...?

 

[Man in a van]

I was going to post "I do a clap test" but thought better of it, it being Sunday an'all

ronnie

 

[Jules_S]

Well, I did the usual thing and Googled "What is RT60". The general consensus seems to be something along these lines:

"Reverberation time, or RT60, is a metric which describes the length of time taken for a sound to decay by 60 dB from its original level. "

So not quite your original definition, Mr. @newlash09 but along those lines. Decay by 60dB, not to 60dB

 

[Le Baron]

It depends what exactly you mean by ‘useful reverb’ - we are discussing sound reflection decay time, and maybe you are discussing something else.

An ordinary furnished room is likely to have an excessive RT60 time. I don’t personally think RT60 is all that useful as there is more to treating a room than just ensuring it is below 600 ms or whatever anyway.

I don't think this is a nomenclature discussion, but it could be. Normal furnished rooms (and I doubt anyone listening to a hi-fi in a room is sitting in some spartan room) don't have any very noticeable reverb. 'Reverb' is the build-up of sound reflections, you are talking about reverberation decay time and it will surely decay so quickly in room with lack of adequate reflection as to be hardly worth mentioning.

 

[rdale]

I don't think this is a nomenclature discussion, but it could be. Normal furnished rooms (and I doubt anyone listening to a hi-fi in a room is sitting in some spartan room) don't have any very noticeable reverb. 'Reverb' is the build-up of sound reflections, you are talking about reverberation decay time and it will surely decay so quickly in room with lack of adequate reflection as to be hardly worth mentioning.

We are discussing the precise meaning of ‘RT60’ and whether on not John Darko correctly explained what it meant in the video linked to be the OP. Several of us have experience of measuring RT60 in our rooms with ‘Room EQ Wizard’ (or REW), and so we are not guessing about it being ‘hardly worth mentioning’ or not.

One issue that I haven’t noticed being pointed out so far is that an RT60 time is for a specific frequency, and so ordinary room furnishings might improve it at high frequencies, but not be so effective in reducing the RT60 time at mid range frequencies.

 

[steve 57]

My lads sitting room has no carpets or curtains and lots of glass and is also quite a big long room.
The reverberation from just talking is quite noticeable and for me quite irritating.
Style over function?

 

[Le Baron]

We are discussing the precise meaning of ‘RT60’ and whether on not John Darko correctly explained what it meant in the video linked to be the OP. Several of us have experience of measuring RT60 in our rooms with ‘Room EQ Wizard’ (or REW), and so we are not guessing about it being ‘hardly worth mentioning’ or not.

One issue that I haven’t noticed being pointed out so far is that an RT60 time is for a specific frequency, and so ordinary room furnishings might improve it at high frequencies, but not be so effective in reducing the RT60 time at mid range frequencies.

Well In that sense it's just overscrupulous nonsense. There's not much decay to measure in an unsuitable room. Put your instruments away.

 

[Jules_S]

My lads sitting room has no carpets or curtains and lots of glass and is also quite a big long room.
The reverberation from just talking is quite noticeable and for me quite irritating.
Style over function?

If he wants to play a lot of organ or choral music and emulate the acoustic from a cathedral, no. Anything else, quite likely

In seriousness that does sound like a bit of a nightmare in audio terms, but then again a lot depends on placement, seating position, volume of replay and of course personal preference. Sitting nearfield and listening at relatively low volumes probably wouldn't show up so many issues as belting it out at concert levels and sitting 25ft away