- "A sound level meter is used for acoustic measurements."
Covers the various techniques and tools used to measure sound levels, frequency response, and other acoustical parameters, including microphones, sound level meters, and spectrum analyzers.
Sound Wave Properties: Understanding the nature of sound waves, frequency, wavelength, amplitude, and phase is important to comprehend the principles of Acoustics.
Decibels and their applications: Decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit to measure absolute power or intensity, and it is used extensively in many areas of Acoustics, including architecture and design.
Sound Pressure Level (SPL): SPL, measured in dB, is the acoustic sound pressure level or how loud the sound is at a specific listening position.
Frequency analysis and Fourier Transform: Frequency analysis is the use of Fourier Transform to quantify the frequency content of a sound signal.
Acoustic Impedance and Resistance: Acoustic impedance and resistance are key concepts to understand when working with sound waves in solid, fluid, or gaseous media.
Acoustic Materials and Treatment: Building materials, absorptive and diffusive surfaces, and ceiling and floor types all play a vital role in creating optimal acoustic environments.
Room modes and resonances: Room modes and resonances are inherent problems in room acoustics when the sound waves produced and reflected by the room's surfaces interact in non-linear ways.
Reverberation and Echo: Reverberation and echo are critical aspects of music and audio production, and architects must consider them to balance sound quality and speech intelligibility.
Sound Field analysis: Sound field analysis refers to evaluating room acoustics by measuring sound properties in different positions within the space.
Microphone techniques: Microphones are essential tools for recording sounds, speech and music in buildings and rooms, and the understanding of recording techniques is crucial to achieve quality results.
Audio signal processing: Audio signal processing is the application of filtering, equalization, dynamics control, and time-shifting to audio signals to modify the sound's quality.
Noise reduction techniques: The reduction of unwanted noise and controlling noise pollution in buildings is a crucial task and requires an understanding of various noise reduction techniques.
Sound source localization: The ability to locate the source of a sound signal accurately is required in many engineering applications, and it requires a good understanding of signal processing techniques and sensor technologies.
Measurement Instrumentation and software tools: Various types of measurement instrumentation and software tools are available to tackle various measurement tasks, and knowledge of such tools is paramount to achieve quality results.
Electroacoustics: Electroacoustics refers to the use of electronic devices such as amplifiers, transducers, and signal processors to process, generate or control sound signals. Knowledge in this area is important to understand the interface between physical acoustics and electronics.
Sound Level Meters: These devices measure the level of sound pressure in decibels (dB) and are used to determine noise levels in various environments.
Noise Dosimeters: These devices measure exposure to noise over extended periods of time and provide an average noise level reading.
Acoustic Calibrators: These devices are used to ensure that sound measurement equipment such as microphones and sound level meters are measuring accurately.
Microphones: These devices are used to convert sound waves into an electrical signal that can be measured by a sound level meter.
Sonar Systems: These use sound waves to determine the location, depth, and shape of objects under water.
Ultrasonic Distance Meters: These devices use high-frequency sound waves to measure the distance between objects.
Acoustic Imaging: This technology visually displays the sound waves in an environment or object, allowing for an assessment of sound quality and design.
Acoustic Panels: These are used to improve sound quality in rooms by absorbing or reflecting sound waves in desired areas.
Frequency Analyzers: These devices measure the frequency content of sound waves and can be used to identify specific frequencies that are present in an environment.
Reverberation Time Meters: These devices measure the time it takes for sound to decay in a room and are used to determine the quality of room acoustics.
Impulse Response Meters: These measure the response of a room to a sudden sound or impulse, which provides information on the room's acoustics.
Acoustic Doppler Velocimeters: These devices measure the velocity of fluids (like air or water) by analyzing the Doppler shift in sound waves made by moving particles.
Vibrometers: These devices measure the amplitude and frequency of sound or vibration in objects.
Acoustic Holography: This technology creates a visual representation of sound waves in 3D space, allowing for an assessment of sound behavior and design.
Acoustic Particle Velocity Meters: These measure the speed and direction of air particles that carry sound waves.
- "The best type of microphone for sound level meters is the condenser microphone."
- "The diaphragm of the microphone responds to changes in air pressure caused by sound waves."
- "The movement of the diaphragm, i.e. the sound pressure (unit pascal, Pa), is converted into an electrical signal."
- "While describing sound in terms of sound pressure, a logarithmic conversion is usually applied, and the sound pressure level is stated instead, in decibels (dB), with 0 dB SPL equal to 20 micropascals."
- "A microphone is distinguishable by the voltage value produced when a known, constant root mean square sound pressure is applied. This is known as microphone sensitivity."
- "The current international standard that specifies sound level meter functionality and performances is the IEC 61672-1:2013."
- "Sound level meters are commonly used in noise pollution studies for the quantification of different kinds of noise, especially for industrial, environmental, mining, and aircraft noise."
- "The reading from a sound level meter does not correlate well to human-perceived loudness, which is better measured by a loudness meter."
- "The world's first hand-held and transistorized sound level meter was released in 1960 and developed by the Danish company Brüel & Kjær."
- "Pulsar Instruments Inc. became the first company to display sound exposure times on the scale of a sound level meter, as well as the sound level."
- "This was to comply with the 1969 Walsh-Healey Act, which demanded that the noise in USA workplaces should be controlled."
- "In 1980, Britain's Cirrus Research introduced the world's first handheld sound level meter to provide integrated Leq and sound exposure level (SEL) measurements."