NOT A GAMBLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 104, 4 May 1936, Page 12

NOT A GAMBLE.

ACOUSTICS A SCIENCE.

NO EXCUSE FOR BAD HEARING. LONDON, March 10. There is no excuse for bad hearing in modern buildings, according to Dr. G. W. C. Kaye, superintendent of the physics department of the National Physical Laboratory. In an address to the Royal Society of Arts Dr. Kaye said acoustics was now a well-established science, and new buildings had no need to continue the evil tradition of a past in which good hearing was considered a pure gamble. The requirements of the cinema had brought the subject very much to the fore, but some recent "legitimate" theatres did not seem to have profited. The first requirement for satisfactory hearing, he added, was freedom from troublesome extraneous noise. Halls should be built, if possible, in quiet localities, free from busy traffic. If there was much noise, the windows should be of thick or double glass. The audience should be made comfortable to prevent restlessness, which was almost inevitable if people could not see very well. Short, broad halls wore preferable to long, narrow ones. Ceilings should be kept low. The acoustics of the House of Common-) were very bad until a false glass ceiling was fitted. | Loud-speakers were now indispensable to very large lialls. In these, excessive reverberation was probably responsible for nine-tenths of the acoustic defects. That could be cured by introducing some absorbent. At the Albert Hall the problem had been solved by a curtain of sailcloth under the ceiling, which was 137 ft high. •