Design Article
Sound Affects
Steve Taranovich
2/8/2013 7:11 PM EST
Architects focus on the eyes but our spaces sound terrible. There is a certain unconsciousness about the sound around us every day. When I lived in Brooklyn as a young boy, I was right down the street from the elevated B train which would pass fairly frequently throughout the day and night. When it passed by 39th street and 10th Avenue where I lived , the metal-on-metal sound was deafening, but that repeated sound I would hear for the many years that I lived near it, became virtually non-existent to me. I am sure many of you have had similar experiences if you think about it.
Biamp Systems
Listen to Steve Metzger, President and CEO of Biamp Systems.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Graeme Harrison, Executive VP of marketing for Biamp Systems, a designer of equipment to deliver, manage and enhance sound in airports, arenas, courtrooms, Houses of Worship, theaters, universities, corporation and conference centers. Graeme sent me a booklet written for Biamp by Julian Treasure called “Sound Affects” which was written to “refocus on the A of AV, exploring why sound quality matters in business and (act) as a guide to achieve the best results when installing it.” The booklet, Biamp’s solutions and Treasure’s philosophy resonate powerfully with me. I love and appreciate all types of music as well as serenity and my first job as an engineer was with a high-end audio company.
Julian Treasure
Julian Treasure is author of the book Sound Business, the first map of the exciting new territory of applied sound for business, and he has been widely featured in the world’s media, including TIME Magazine, The Economist, The Times, UK national TV and radio, as well as many international trade and business magazines. His three TED talks have been viewed an estimated four million times. The first is on the four effects of sound; the second on sound and health and the third, which has over a million views on the TED website alone, is on conscious listening.
Treasure comments, “….I have experienced so many commercial spaces, from shops and offices to schools and transport terminals, where poor sound is having devastating effects on sales, on communication, on productivity, on customer satisfaction, or on wellbeing.” He is chairman of The Sound Agency, a UK-based consultancy that helps clients achieve better results by optimizing the sound they make in every aspect of business.
Listening is making meaning from sound, says Treasure. We all listen through a set of filters, though most of us are completely unaware of them. These include our culture, language, beliefs, attitudes, expectations and intentions.
Check out this case study on Biamp’s website regarding the St. Pancras Renaissance hotel, a 19th century London treasure.
St. Pancras Hotel in London shown here
Next: In the beginning
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Dr. Hurrligan
2/12/2013 4:25 PM EST
"Treasure comments, '….I have experienced so many commercial spaces, from shops and offices to schools and transport terminals, where poor sound is having devastating effects on sales, on communication, on productivity, on customer satisfaction, or on wellbeing.'"
I don't think this is true at all. It is my direct experience as a music lover and former sound technician that nobody gives a rat's puhtootie about sound quality and never has. And this is precisely why the intercom sound quality at the Sonic drive-in I went to last night and the intercom quality of the Sonic drive-ins and A&W's and Arctic Circles I went to when I was six (some 50 years ago) is exactly the same: positively crappy, uninteligible and nearly unuseable. This is the case precisely because it DOES NOT affect the bottom line. People (like me) put up with it. They pay their money and repeat themselves endlessly. I often, because of the extremely poor sound quality and thick accent of the drive-up window person who speaks virtually no English, have to give up and wait till I get to the "first window" to place my order. This screws up the queue and creates a lot of confusion and still no one cares---not anyone with the authority to change anything. When people like me stop frequentling drive-ins and drive-ups because the sound quality is too poor to use, they'll improve it---just enough to keep the drive-up open.
Another case is the really crappy, phased out, choppy quality of cell phone audio. People put up with it. Half the time it sounds like you're talking to Niel Armstrong on the wrong side of the moon . . . and people put up with it.
And don't get me started on concert sound . . . But trust me, no one cares, especially not the people who would have to spen money in order to improve it.
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Thinking_J
2/12/2013 5:00 PM EST
Dr. Hurrligan....
Sounding a bit ... shall we say "bitter"?
Are your experiences "unusual"? not really.
But the world can change.
I have complained about the poor sound quality in a restaurant (too many hard surfaces causing everyone to hear EVERYTHING, to distracting levels) .. And come back later to find changes made at the restaurant improving the situation.
So sometimes, just sometimes, when customers complain..... management listens and acts.
Then I feel better about the world - for a few moments.
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Paul Perry
2/12/2013 10:11 PM EST
I have spoken to restaurant professionals about this issue, but they say that restaurants are actually INTENDED to sound loud, so that they appear to be more "happening". Also, the sooner the customers finish eating and leave, the better.
So unless you are frequenting the top-end "all evening" establishments, don't expect change any time soon.
Mind you, I expect part of the problem for Dr Hurrligan may be that (like me) he grew up in a pre-MP3 player world, and is still able to hear.
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WKetel
2/12/2013 10:08 PM EST
Sound quality and music level certainly are a deal-breaker for me when I visit a business. I am one of those who has left a store after telling the manager that their music is just plain obnoxious, in both volume and character. Plus, there are several restaurants that will never see me again because they play the music so loud that it gets in the way of conversation. And another dumb thing that I have experienced is a local tavern thatplays prerecorded cowd noise, so that it always sounds like a big crowd of people having a great time. That seems so dumb, because we look around and see that the place is not full, and that there are folks sitting and eating in their booths and talking quietly.
But the very worst is those places that attempt to play music through those cheap six inch paging trumpets, which have a 350 Hz cutoff frequuency response. Do you know how bad "wannabe Jazz" sounds with no tones below 300Hz?
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Dale Shpak
2/12/2013 11:38 PM EST
Simon Fraser University is in Vancouver.
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steve.taranovich
2/13/2013 12:36 AM EST
Thanks for the correction Dale--you're absolutely right
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giacomo.schieppati
2/13/2013 10:15 AM EST
I'm using Biamp hardware, and is really fine. But the Biamp software no... Please, Biamp people, fix your AudiaFlex software :-) I will send to you some italian wine :-)
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steve.taranovich
2/13/2013 10:39 AM EST
Grazie Giacomo for your candid inputs. I am sure Biamp engineers will contact you when they see this.
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giacomo.schieppati
2/13/2013 12:15 PM EST
sorry Mr. Steve for my dreadful english :-) I was meaning: "when they will fix the software, I can send to them a box of italian sparkling wine" :-) (as you for sure know, italian sparkling wine is better than champagne) :-)
I hope that nobody get angry....
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steve.taranovich
2/13/2013 12:34 PM EST
No need to be sorry Giacomo---if you have had some problems, then so do other engineers and I know that Biamp will want to look into this to make their customers happy. You are doing a good thing in bringing feedback to the designers at Biamp. We need more engineers like you to comment on issues like this.---and your English is not bad at all (I am married to a beautiful Italian girl from Piemonte!)
Anyway, a wine for software trade is a good deal!
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Biamp Systems
2/13/2013 12:22 PM EST
Ciao Giacomo, please send the wine! And send your top three software gripes to support@biamp.com. Greetings from Biamp!
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przemek
2/15/2013 1:53 PM EST
There's a concert hall near where I live: Strathmore Hall in Rockville MD. It has a reputation for excellent acoustics---I think both Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and National Philharmonic adopted it as its home venue because of that. Whoever designed it did an excellent job, although the flip side of this beautiful sound is truly vertiginous seating in the upper tiers.
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steve.taranovich
2/15/2013 1:56 PM EST
When I was in Scottsdale AZ recently, I visited the Frank Lloyd Wright museum----many of his larger designs were acoustically amazing and well thought out as far as good sound transmission in a space like a concert hall, lecture hall or auditorium.
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