Simulated Reverberation Curves in Rectangular Rooms with Diffuse Sound Fields

For a number of rectangular rooms, the reverberation curves to be expected were simulated with a digital computer under the following conditions: One wall of each room is assumed to be fully absorbent while the remaining ones are free from absorption. In the latter case, varying numbers of freely-hanging diffusers are assumed to be in the room.

The evaluation of reverberation curves obtained in this manner reveals systematic deviations from the regular reverberation formulae, which are explained by a violation of the usual assumptions on which the theory is based. For a quantitative understanding of the actual reverberation curves, an integral equation is derived, the approximate solutions of which yield better agreement with the computer experiments.