CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, April 08, 2014

AV: Understanding Gear Specification Sheets

Pro Sound Web: For the majority of humans, there is nothing simpler than listening to sound. You simply, well, listen.
When it becomes necessary to describe the listening experience analytically, however, a host of complex equations and diagrams are required to describe even the simplest of sonic events.

1 comment:

AeonX8 said...

Ultimately, in sound, as in PTM, “It depends!” In my newbie quest to learn more about the science of sound, I found this article about the measurement of acoustic signals and audio components to be very beneficial. Pat Brown’s analogy of time as the independent variable, and scheduled events as the dependent variable, gave me a good entry point into understanding spec sheets. I also learned that many audio and acoustic parameters are frequency-dependent. However, I got a bit lost with the directivity plot/index. In addition to the charts in the article, I need a diagram of a few audience-loudspeaker layouts. But that is probably just me. Overall, this was a good introduction to the concepts.