Room Acoustics – Reverb and Noise

Measuring room acoustic parameters such as reverberation time and background noise is a simple task with WinMLS.

IMPORTANT: For a description on how to measure reverberberation time, click help.

You may also find this in the paperback manual if you prefer to read from paper. If you do not have a paperback manual you may print out from the help file.

When you followed this guide, click the Next > button to continue.

The reverberation time is displayed in the upper plot in the leftmost window (see picture). The numbers in the plot show the reverberation time.

The lower plot displays the time data (impulse response) plotted on a dB y-axis which makes it possible to see the decay as function of time (see picture).

To display the FAQ on the room acoustics part of WinMLS, click help.

Click the Next > button to continue.

In classrooms it is usually smart to put the loudspeaker in the corner. Measure in the desired number of mic. positions. After measuring, follow the procedure below to export the mean value of the reverb time:

Click the reverberation plotClick the STAT buttonClick the Solo buttonGo to Edit→Copy Data to copy to clipboard or go to File→Export Data… to save the data as a text file.Before doing a new measurement, turn off the Solo and STAT buttons (or reload the setup).

Click the rightmost plot (shown in the wizard picture) to activate the settings for measuring noise.

Before measuring you may need to calibrate as is explained in the next wizard step.

The plot to the right displays the Leq in dBA. The plot to the left displays the level (Leq) in third-octave bands.

For more details, load the setup named'Level (Noise)_Leq (one-third oct. bands dBA dBC etc.)'

To measure the correct absolute levels, the input chain must be calibrated. If you only need to compare relative levels, you may skip this part.

Calibration can be done in different ways as explained if you click the Help button below. Here we assume that you are using a microphone and have a calibrator.

Then what you need to calibrate is to click the Cal button on the standard toolbar as shown in the figure. Follow the procedure to complete the calibration.

If you want to start the Wizard again, do this from Measurement→Wizard→Start.

You can easily edit the Wizard to include your own specific instructions from Measurement→Wizard→Editor….

Click help for more information.

If you want WinMLS to remember changes you have made to the settings, store the setup from Setup→Store….

Click the Finish button to exit this wizard.