Excessive absorption can degrade speech intelligibility

Evidence

Bradley et al. (2003) say: “Although it is important to avoid excessive reverberant sound, adding large amounts of absorption to achieve very short reverberation times may degrade intelligibility due to reduced early reflection levels.” They suggest a ratio of the energy within the first 50 ms of an impulse response to the energy associated with the direct sound as a new figure of merit for a room, called the early reflection benefit (ERB). — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1251

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names and defines the early reflection benefit (ERB) figure of merit.
• SEED: Angles well as a demystifier: ‘dead rooms hurt intelligibility too’ — counterintuitive acoustics fact for home theater design discussions.
• CANDY: An overtuned, fully dead room is counterproductive for dialogue comprehension — a shareable home-theater myth-buster.