Acoustics+2

Church design begins with the loudspeaker and how it plays sound into the hall. It ends with how the hall returns reflections of the sound back to the audience. Electronic distortion must be avoided. Distortion of the signal is one of the fastest ways to cause people to lose their understanding of the sound. In addition, the loudspeaker system should sound similar no matter where a person is seated. This is achieved when the speaker system is tested and confirmed to provide a fairly flat frequency response curve for every seat in the church.


 * SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE **

Concert Hall

The largest hall is the Concert Hall, which seats 2,679. It is used for a wide variety of performances including symphony concerts, chamber music, opera, dance, choral concerts, pop, jazz and folk concerts, variety shows and conventions. The acoustics of the Concert Hall are highly regarded internationally. The ceiling, which rises up to 25 meters (82 feet) above the platform, and upper walls are paneled with white birch plywood, and the lower walls, stairs, boxes and stage platform are paneled with a hard brown wood, brush box. These Australian woods are used throughout the building. The volume of 26,400 cubic meters (880,000 cubic feet) gives a reverberation time of approximately two seconds allowing symphonic music to be heard with a full, rich and mellow tone. Above the platform are suspended 18 adjustable acrylic acoustic rings or "clouds", which assist musicians by reflecting some of the sound of the instruments straight back to the platform. The Concert Hall Grand Organ was designed and built by Australian, Ronald Sharp, between 1969 and 1979. It is the largest mechanical tracker action organ in the world with 10,500 pipes. There are five manual and one pedal keyboards and 127 stops arranged in 205 ranks.