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Free Field Acoustics

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In a free field , sound level decreases by 6 dB for each doubling of the distance. Inside rooms, however, in which sound reflects from many surfaces, the sound level is greater than the free-field level. In analyzing the acoustics of an auditorium, attention should be given to the direct, early, and reverberant sounds. The ability of our ears to locate a source by analyzing the direct sound and virtually ignoring the early sound is called the precedence effect. Reverberant sound builds up and decays at a rate characterized by the reverberation time (RT), which depends on the room volume and the absorption of all the surfaces in it.