Reverberant fields supply most perceived loudness in normal rooms

Evidence

Clearly the level of the reverberant field is strongly affected by the level of average absorption. The first example would be typical of an extremely “dead” acoustic environment, as found in some studios, whereas the second is typical of an average living room. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1776

Categorization

• STORYSTEM: A character could instantly read a room’s acoustic absorption by the character of its reverberation — a studio ‘deadness’ versus the warmth of a living room.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1776
• XREF: connects to: Reverberation multiplies perceived speech loudness well beyond measured level gains — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 2058; Reverberant rooms make loudspeaker directivity important for sound quality — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 474; Room boundary reflections are the second loudest sounds a listener hears — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 55 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Room reverberation barely affects early reflection audibility but strongly elevates late-reflection thresholds #expands (0.82) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 630