Reverberation time of selected classrooms in the Arnoldus Science Complex, University of San Carlos

Abstract

Reverberation time RT is the time it takes for a sound to decay by 60 dB, that is 10^–6 of its original level. In room acoustics, RT is of prime importance in "tuning" a room into its intended purpose (e.g. speech, music). In the measurement of the reverberation times of the rooms in the Arnoldus Science Complex, a Brüel and Kjær sound analyzer was used. The results show that all the five rooms when unoccupied have RT's greater than 1.5 s, an indicator that the rooms may be poor in speech intelligibility and that a listener in the room may experience listening difficulty. Comparing the measured reverberation times to the prescribed RT of 0.4– 0.6 s for a classroom set by the Acoustical Society of America, each room may prove to be ineffective for its purpose. Furthermore, for a room filled with a number of people, a significant decrease in the RT was observed: a proof that indeed more absorbers in the room, in effect, decreased the reverberation time.