Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Acoustics in common house--not always desirable

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 25 Feb 2012, at 8:47 AM, Diana Carroll wrote:

> \I'm confused. You asked a company how to get your acoustics to be "concert
> hall" like (ie: very resonant and reflective)?  If your goal was a better
> musical space, why would you spend $5k on sound absorbing acoustic panels
> to make it LESS music-hall-like?

We did NOT ask them to make our dining room more concert hall like. I was using 
the concert hall example as a measure of the high end of their work, to 
illustrate their level of recognition and capability. As a way of saying "This 
is a top acoustical design firm that does the highest level work."

I sent our request for acoustical work to every acoustical contractor in the 
area — anyone with an address. Most never responded at all because acoustical 
contractors work with architects, normally before buildings are built. They 
don't care about small jobs like a two-story dining room. Only one came to look 
at the job and he never sent a bid. Or answered later phone calls.

This one agreed to have their acoustical engineers look at the numbers — which 
were totally incomprehensible to me — and tell us what we needed in money terms 
and recommended products.

After two years of a team working on this, success came with a referral from 
one of our members who manages music groups. He knew a musician who did music 
studios for musicians. The musician glanced at the numbers, then he and his 
helpers, also musicians, pounded on walls and shouted at each other from 
various places in the room. And looked at each other and made various gestures. 

Some of the things that had been recommended they said we didn't need because, 
as Diana said, the needs for music with the deep bass tones, for example, were 
not our problem. They planned the panels and put everything up perfectly. 

The results in terms of talkability were stunning. But then we got used to it 
and everyone aged and we need more.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org