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Arny Krueger
 
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Default Sound absorption in air.


"Chel van Gennip" wrote in message
...

On Thu, 12 Jan 2006 14:09:19 +0100, Arny Krueger wrote:


"Chris Whealy" wrote in message
...



For all practical (read audible) purposes, the absorption of sound by
air is not significant for indoor listening situations.


Can you honestly say that after checking the "other references" I
provided above?


A rhetorical question? ;-)

There has been a lot of discussion about "audibility" of the frequencies
above 20 or even 50 kHz. As this verifyable data shows, these frequencies
are absent in a concert hall. I therefore think they should be absent in
recordings too, audible or not.


I find it interesting that the data from Earthworks was only realistic for
rooms where the air was improbably dry.

There seems to be quite a bit of convergence among data from numerous
sources.

It is important to know air does change sound.


It's a low pass filter in real-world applications, plain and simple.

That has implications. If
you do scientific measurements on a violin, you better put the microphone
as close as possible to the instrument, if you want to make a recording
to listen to, keep your distance.


I'm not going to go that far. Close micing is a good way to help manage the
contribution of the room sound to the overall sonic picture. If you have
the luxury of a room that sounds good, then this is less important.

Quite a bit of real-world listening involves being reasonably close to the
players. I still remember the first time I listened to a string quartet
when I could literally reach out and touch their music stands.