Steady-state frequency curves misrepresent how transient music interacts with reflections.

Evidence

All of this assumes a “steady state” sound. Speech and music have many transient and short-duration decaying components, that would interact differently because they have no “steady-state” characteristics—the direct sound may be in decline before the reflected version arrives. These curves do not depict how a listener would perceive a normal sound with a complex frequency and time-domain structure. Steady-state measurements do not show what we hear in rooms. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 665

Categorization

• XREF: Directly analogous to the reader’s existing emphasis on how measurement methodology shapes what we conclude about acoustic perception — parallels the noise research in One Square Inch of Silence about how measurement choices frame the problem.