Today's Lesson

When setting up your sound system indoors, it’s wise to consider the size and the acoustics of the space you will be using. Depending on the shape and size of the venue, you may be faced with certain acoustic challenges. 

For instance, smaller rooms often exhibit strong, unpleasant midrange to low-mid resonances due to the room’s physical sizes matching such corresponding midrange wavelengths. Because of this, smaller spaces don’t lend themselves very well to high sound level reproduction. You don’t want to have a full out rock concert or dance party in a small room, that is if you want to be able to hear things clearly and not damage your ears. A practical approach would be to match your loudspeakers to your room. So in smaller spaces, use small to mid-size PA systems and be aware of the rise in midrange resonances as you start turning things up. Try to find a happy medium between volume level and clarity. 

On the other hand, large venues will often have a lot of reverberation, which can lead to loss of clarity and intelligibility. In these venues, a distributed audio system may be preferred in order to limit the excitation of the reverberant field as much as possible.

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