Rectangular shoebox halls naturally produce abundant lateral reflections prized for sound quality.

Evidence

However, it is not just the provision of diffusion on the side walls that must be considered. The traditional concert hall is called a shoebox hall, because of its shape, as shown in Figure 6.25, and this naturally provides a large number of lateral reflections to the audience. This shape, combined with the Victorian penchant for florid plaster decoration, resulted in some excellent sounding spaces. Unfortunately shoebox halls are harder to make a profit with because they cannot seat as many people as some other structures. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 1969

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Follows the preceding discussion of side-wall diffusion; connects to the broader concert-hall acoustics literature (e.g. Sabine, Beranek) on lateral reflections.

Related

• Shoebox-shaped Victorian halls naturally produced excellent acoustics (similarity 0.91)
• Fan-shaped halls sacrifice lateral reflections for seating capacity (similarity 0.89)
• Shoebox-shaped concert halls naturally produce abundant lateral reflections (similarity 0.87)
• Fan-shaped halls discourage early side reflections and tend to fail acoustically (similarity 0.86)
• Lateral early reflections arriving within 20 ms create perceived spaciousness (similarity 0.85)
• Fan-shaped concert halls discourage early side reflections and tend to fail acoustically. (similarity 0.84)
• Fan-shaped halls sacrifice good lateral reflections for seating capacity and sightlines. (similarity 0.82)
• Lateral diffuse reflections are required for listener enjoyment (similarity 0.82)
• Concert hall surfaces reflect low but scatter high frequency sound (similarity 0.81)
• Early side-wall reflections range neutral to beneficial with well-designed loudspeakers (similarity 0.80)
• Ceiling-reflected diffuse sound cannot substitute for real side-wall reflections (similarity 0.79)
• Accurate soundstage alone cannot satisfy musically without reproduced hall reflections (similarity 0.79)
• Classical musicians must hear themselves via hall reflections alone (similarity 0.79)
• Opposite-wall reflections compensate for surround propagation loss at no cost (similarity 0.79)
• Ceiling reflections cannot substitute for side-wall reflections. (similarity 0.78)