Lexicon: S
Sound conditioning of rooms/Reverberation/Sound absorber
Places like restaurants, clubhouses and offices, but also rooms or staircases in private home often present quite high noise levels, making them less comfortable places to stay in. Reverberation (i.e. lingering noise) is the result of sound waves being reflected from hard surfaces (e.g. walls, ceilings or floors). The noise level in a given room can be substantially lowered by reducing the reverberation resp. the reverberation time. For this purpose, part of the room’s interior surfaces can be covered with sound-absorbing materials (e.g. acoustic foams) that absorb the sound waves instead of reflecting them.