Absorption at each reflection governs how fast reverberation decays
Evidence
The decay of the reverberant field level: When a tone in the space stops, or after a transient, the reverberant sound level will not reduce immediately but will instead decay at a rate determined by the amount of sound energy that is absorbed at each reflection. Thus in spaces with a small amount of absorption, the reverberant field will take longer to decay. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1743
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1743
- XREF: connects to: Absorbing first reflections cascades to attenuate the whole reflected sound field; Ideal reverberation is a smooth exponential decay whose rate depends on context.; Surface absorption weakens early reflections below inverse-square-law predictions (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Reverberation time depends on both surface absorption and time between reflections
#expands(0.95) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1824 - Higher absorption reduces the first-reflection energy that feeds the reverberant field
#expands(0.90) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1763 - Room absorption determines the steady-state level of reverberant sound
#expands(0.90) — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1781 - Redirecting reflections creates uneven hot spots while absorption shortens reverberation
#qualifies(0.85)