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You have entered the Stuart & Sons Handcrafted Grand Pianos ‘Extended Information’
section of the site. For rich interactive ‘Audio Visual’ experience, return to Main Site.
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THE SHOWROOM ACOUSTICS
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The Acoustic Treatment of the Stuart & Sons Piano Showroom.
The brief was for a multifunctional space. The room was to be used as a showroom, a performance space and a recording studio all rolled into one. It was paramount that the final space would present the true sound and character of the piano with no artificial enhancements.
Early on it was decided that the room would be all white so that the pianos had a "blank canvas" as a background to be viewed against. The lighting would be neutral so that no colour casts would spoil the piano's rich timber finish. The tricky part was trying to quantify an acoustic space that would be neutral enough to allow each instrument to speak in its own unique way and yet simulate a performance or recording environment that would enhance the sound of each instrument and stimulate the performer. After all, with any acoustic instrument, the room is as much a part of the sound as the instrument itself.
It was agreed that a "live room" would better suit most performers who were used to playing in large concert halls. How could we use the meagre 320m3 to simulate a room 10 to 100 times larger larger in volume? The answer was simple; we couldn't but our performance space was similar in volume to most concert stages and it is this cluster of early reflections that provide performers with the necessary feedback to judge tone and dynamics. Our approach was to use a minimal amount of absorption and as much diffusion as possible in an attempt to lengthen the reverberation tail in the room and broaden the time interval between reflections back to the listener. We were reluctant to lose any volume in the room so angling isolation walls and ceilings was not an option. The only way to break up the parallel nature of this rectangular prism was to line all the walls and the ceiling with diffusers. We didn't have the budget to introduce complex architectural detailing and it didn't suit the visual aesthetic that is very focused on the piano as hero. The solution was to use polycylinders along the walls arranged in opposing vertical and horizontal patterns so as to provide maximum scatter of reflected sound waves. Along the south wall, a quadratic residue diffuser was interspersed with helmholtz resonators to help reduce the reverberation time in the lowest 3 octaves of the audio band so that the pianos didn't sound too "boomy" and lose too much clarity. A matrix of ceiling panels were also arranged using a quadratic residue sequence and angled to provide a complex 3-D scatter pattern. The spacing of the panels allowed some access to the space above the floating ceiling extending the virtual size of the overall acoustic space and further helping to extend the reverberation tail.
When the time came to evaluate the finished room, we used listening tests and RT60 measurements to help fine tune the room. The 4kHz octave band was found to be too high compared to the other bands and some narrow wall banners were introduced to remove some of the "edginess" to the last 2 octaves of the piano. This brought RT60 down to 1.2 seconds at 1kHz with a gentle bell curve shape overall.
The consensus was that we had achieved our goal of maximising the reverberation time in the room, broadening and softening the early reflection cluster and eliminating flutter echoes. The integrity of the piano sound was fully intact and we had created an exciting and stimulating space to play in.
Based on the outcome of the ‘A New Voice’ Demonstration Disc recorded in the room, it has also resulted in some great performances and outstanding recordings.
Michael Fronzek. Acoustic designer/engineer.
soundspaces@mac.com
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