🎙️ What is Echo Threshold?
The Silent Limit of Audibility in Conference Halls High sound quality does not depend only on the quality of the speaker systems used or the microphone brand. Real acoustic success is possible thanks to the sound behavior created by the hall's own architecture.
At the beginning of these behaviors comes a frequently ignored concept: Echo. Threshold.
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📌 What is the Echo Threshold? So?
When a sound wave reaches our ears again after hitting a surface, an echo occurs when our brain perceives it as a repetition separate from the original sound. However, this perception occurs after a certain delay period. This point is called echo threshold.
🔍 Generally, this threshold occurs between 50 and 80 milliseconds. So if a reflection reaches the ear this far after the original sound, the human brain begins to interpret that sound as a repetition. Reflections below 50 ms are perceived as a direct part of the sound and no echo occurs. What Happens If the Echo Threshold Is Ignored?
In a hall where the echo threshold is ignored, the following problems occur: It is inevitable:
Conversations become incomprehensible income.
Audience attention It disperses. It mixes. loses.
And most importantly: Even if there is a good sound system in the hall, It cannot be received. Not to be confused
When the echo problem is mentioned in the industry, the concepts of "resonance" or "long echo time" (T60) often come to the fore. However, the echo threshold is a very different and more technical concept.
🔹 T60 is the time limit for the sound to fade completely in the environment.
🔹 Resonance is the involuntary growth of certain frequencies in the hall.
🔹 Echo threshold is the time when the sound is perceived as repetition.
Knowing this difference is essential to choose the right intervention method. Dampening the echo is another job, not creating the echo at all is a completely different engineering. It is a discipline.
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🏛️ Hall Architecture and Echo Threshold: Invisible Architecture Errors
Architectural details that cause the echo threshold to be exceeded are often not noticed. not.
📐 For example:
Curved walls cause sound to focus It happens.
High ceilings cause uncontrolled reflections. Symmetrical surfaces cause sound to hit more than one direction at the same time. It opens.
As Nish Global, we analyze such problems at the project drawing stage and consider the acoustic performance together with the visual aesthetics of the hall. We get it. Can it be measured?
You cannot act on hearsay information in this business. Technical measurement and analysis are required to determine the echo threshold.
📊 Basic techniques we apply are:
Impulse Response method: The hall is stimulated from one point and all reflections are detected. recording
ETC (Energy Time Curve): Showing how energy spreads over time. curves
Schroeder Decay Curve: Echo according to the damping profile of the sound analysis
These measurements form the scientific basis of acoustic interventions to be made in the hall. As Nish Global, we combine these analyzes with field tests in every project, optimizing not only theoretical but also real usage conditions. We appreciate it. Are we working?
🎯 When starting each project, we analyze the relationship of sound with space. Our goal is to produce a sound that is understood, not just "heard". ✅ We position our acoustic ceiling solutions in a way that prevents reflections from drifting along the ceiling.
With this approach, both acoustic comfort and communication efficiency are ensured in our halls. Because sound exists not only to be heard, but to express.
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🎓 Result: Echo, Sound's Superficialized The echo threshold is not just a technical limit, but an invisible line that determines the communication quality of the hall. In projects that do not pay attention to this line, no matter how high-quality systems are used, the halls turn into a sound box. Because we know that a living room is not just four walls and a few rows of seats. The living room is a place of communication and meaning, not echo, should circulate in this place. 🎤
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