The acoustics of the Royal Festival Hall, London
The Royal Festival Hall was opened in London in May, 1951. This paper describes in some detail its acoustical design, the test concerts held in it before the opening, the objective measurements made in it, and the comments about its acoustics that have been made during the first eighteen
months since its opening. These comments show that the “definition” is excellent, but that for some types of music more “fullness of tone” would be desirable. It is concluded that the reverberation time is the only objective measurement which, at the present stage of
development, is of practical use. Its value in the Royal Festival Hall when full is 1.5 seconds (at 500 c/s), which is 0.2 seconds shorter than the optimum value given by Knudsen and Harkis for a hall of this size. It seems probable that the “fullness” would be adequate if the
reverberation time could be lengthened to 1.7 seconds or somewhat longer.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 January 1953
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