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| In 1898, Wallace C. Sabine (Sabin) (1868 - 1919) came up with the reverb time formula, but the
article "Collected Papers on Acoustics" appeared in print 1922. Even today his ingenious formula is unchanged in constant use. Reverberation time RT60 = k · V / A = 0.049 · V / A (V and A in feet) Reverberation time RT60 = k · V / A = 0.161 · V / A (V and A in meter) with the factor k = (24 × ln 10) / c20 = 0.049 (feet) or with k = (24 × ln 10) / c20 = 0.161 (meter) RT60 = reverberation time in s (reverb time) V = room volume in m3 A = α · S = equivalent absorption surface or area in m2 α = absorption coefficient or attenuation coefficient The terms "attenuation coefficient" and "absorption coefficient" are used interchangeably S = absorbing surface area in m2 A = α1 · S1 + α2 · S2 + α3 · S3 + .. c20 = speed of sound is 343 m/s or 1126 ft/s at 20°C |
| Sound engineers and sound designers ("ear people") mostly use the usual sound field quantity. They therefore state: RT60 is the reverberation time, it takes for the sound pressure level Lp (SPL) to decrease by 60 dB. ● (−)60 dB is equivalent to the thousandth part (10−3) of the initial sound pressure p. Acousticians and sound protectors ("noise fighters") seem to like more the sound energy quantity. They express this differently: RT60 is the reverberation time, it takes for the sound intensity level LI to decrease by 60 dB. ● (−)60 dB is equivalent to the millionth part (10−6) of the initial sound intensity I. Sound pressure (sound field quantity) is not sound intensity (sound energy quantity). I ~ p2 Sometimes you can hear the statement: RT60 is the reverberation time, it takes for the sound level L to drop by 60 dB. Whatever the user wants to tell us so accurately. Level is level or dB is dB. |
| Reverberation time (RT) is a measure of the amount of reverberation in a space and equal to the time required for
the level of a steady sound to decay by 60 dB after the sound has stopped. The decay rate depends on the amount of sound absorption in a room, the room geometry, and the frequency of the sound. RT is expressed in seconds. This decay is usually measured over the first 10, 20 or 30 dB and then extrapolated to the full 60 dB range. The frequency dependent reverberation time of a room is usually given for the center of a third octave band filter frequency of 500 Hz or 1 kHz or a frequency dependent response curve of the reverberation time of the frequency, but this is not a "frequency response" of the reverberation. k is a constant that equals 0.161 when the units of measurement are expressed in meters and 0.049 when units are expressed in feet. A = α × S is the total surface absorption A of a room expressed in sabins. It is the sum of all the surface areas in the room multiplied by their respective absorption coefficients. The absorption coefficients α express the absorption factor of materials at given frequencies. Vis the volume of the enclosure. The figures used in this calculator come from the table of absorption coefficients for various materials which can be found in any book that talks about room acoustics. |
Enter the measurements of the room
and make sure to specify the units.