Learn About Acoustics from the Best
May
5
Written by:
Jeremy Glowacki
5/5/2010 6:12 AM
If you’re new to the industry or have ever felt that you just didn’t understand enough about home theater audio and acoustics, then CEDIA has a great online educational opportunity available to you over the next three Thursdays.
Led my widely respected audio acoustics expert, Dr. Floyd Toole, the three, three-hour webinars (ESD301, ESD302, and ESD303), starting May 6, will offer a thorough overview of audio and acoustics.
Tomorrow’s course will focus first on the basic dimensions of sound and how they relate to sound propagation in rooms and to its perception by listeners. Dr. Toole will show how scattering and diffusing devices and absorbers work and how they interact with sounds radiated by loudspeakers.
The basics of loudspeaker measurements also are explained as they relate to listener preferences.
At the conclusion of this course, participants should be able to:
• Understand key sound fundamentals as they relate to the choice and placement of loudspeakers and acoustical materials for home theaters.
• Appreciate the differences between absorption and transmission loss as they relate to the different acoustical and structural materials.
• Analyze how the size and shape of a room (length, width, and height) affect bass sounds in terms of frequency response and seat-to-seat variations.
• Recognize that knowing about sound, sound propagation, acoustical materials and loudspeakers allows designers to substantially anticipate the quality of sound reproduction within a room or theater.
In case you need further encouragement, Dr. Toole is just about the best source for audio and acoustics education around. CEDIA’s 2008 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient recently retired from Harman International, where he spent the last 17 years as the Harman R&D Group’s Corporate Acoustical Engineering vice president.
His research has focused on small-room acoustics and evaluating the relationship between technical measurements and listeners’ perceptions. His findings have been applied to loudspeaker design and manufacturing.
During a video tribute to Dr. Toole about his CEDIA Lifetime Achievement Award two years ago, industry veteran and frequent Residential Systems editorial contributor Michael Heiss offered an amusing anecdote about a man he says is “the nicest, most helpful, most cheerful person in the industry.”
In the video, Heiss said Dr. Toole’s innovative work with loudspeakers over the years has been so highly regarded that when the sergeant at arms for the U.S. Congress introduces the President of the United States for the annual State of the Union address with “Mr. Speaker!,” he half expects Dr. Floyd Toole to be in front of the chamber, with a gavel, instead of the Speaker of the House.
Register here: http://www.cedia.net/education/elearning_webinar.php#ESD301