Art’s Acoustic Blog
Art Noxon is a fully accredited Professional Acoustical Engineer with Master’s degree in both Mechanical Engineering (Acoustics) and Physics. He invented the TubeTrap in 1983. He created Acoustic Sciences Corp in 1984 to manufacture and distribute the TubeTrap. A prolific inventor, he has 12 TubeTrap related patents and has developed over 150 other acoustic devices and counting. A scientist, lecturer, writer, and teacher of acoustics, Art Noxon has presented numerous AES papers, magazine articles, white papers, lectures and classes in the field of applied acoustics.
Chasing Sound in Grauman’s Chinese Theater
ASC president and TubeTrap inventor, Art Noxon, PE Acoustical shares his acoustic discovery in Hollywood’s world-famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Here’s what Grauman’s Chinese Theater looks like from the downstage center position. It’s where the giant movie screen is located and is looking across the seating towards the back of the hall. […]
Listening to HiFi Equipment vs Listening to the Music it Plays
To establish a reference baseline for the following discussion of Hi-fi listening, it is helpful to skim an article published in Stereophile: The View into the Soundstage by John Atkinson It is a commentary about listening to audio equipment and the perception of what is known as a HiFi soundstage. […]
Your Listening Room is Double Tracking Your Sweetspot
“Double tracking” is a recording technique where a singer records a song to get an original track, then re-records the same song to get a second or double track. The engineer mixes the original with the double track to get a double tracked sound, which usually sounds a lot better, thicker than the original sound. The same thing happens in hi-fi playback rooms. […]
A Sonic Tsunami
A Sonic Tsunami: Born in the Front-End of Your Listening Room. Comment recently added to Sunday Morning HiFi #4 blog by Spencer Holbert in Absolute Sound on room acoustics December 9, 2016 “Over 30 years ago I invented the TubeTrap which naturally led to my being involved in a seemingly endless string of room setups, that continues through today. Over the years certain “rules” evolved. […]
Stonehenge Acoustics and ASC’s QuickSoundField
Let’s talk about Stonehenge Acoustics and ASC’s QuickSoundField. The Neolithic monument in southern England known as Stonehenge has a 4500 year history that is shrouded in awe, wonderment, and speculation. One of the most recent suppositions is that the site was designed and built largely with acoustical concerns, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a much more modern acoustical tool. […]
Ambience
For the audiophile, “ambience” is a highly desirable acoustic quality of the listening room where sound seems to hang in the air, to have a low level but sustained presence. It is developed by coordinating the acoustic compliment in the room with the dispersion pattern of the loudspeaker in such a way that the acoustic signature of the small room is replaced by a new acoustic signature, one which defines a larger, less distinct and more spacious listening room. […]
Diffusion
Diffusion is the scattering and weakening of reflected sound. A properly diffused reflection produces a more natural sound, contributing to enhanced Ambience in a room. […]
New Life Center
The New Life Center was looking to refurnish the interior of his sanctuary after smoke damage. The church essentially had a blank canvas to work with, and acoustics was the element of the reconstruction that needed the most attention. […]
Baptist Church’s Heavenly Acoustic Upgrade
This church loves choir and congregational singing, but when the choir left the practice room to sing on the new platform…they lost their confidence. The Pastor began to look for someone to help them out and eventually noticed ASC and our holistic approach to church acoustics. […]
Putting the Art in Articulation
We put the Art in Articulation as we look into the effect of poor articulation on tonal transients. These are sonic events that help to give instruments their “voice” and provide the intimacy and impact that make live music events so captivating. After all, the pinnacle of high-end music reproduction is achieving the convincing illusion that “you are there!” […]
AttackWall – History
Art Noxon had invented a unique bass trap in his basement in 1983 and by 1985 it had become the TubeTrap, a well-known acoustic device used to dial-in the precision sound environments of both HiFi and recording studios. This is the AttackWall history. […]
Sound Stress and Seahorses
The Consequences of a Noisy Environment to Animal Health Authors: Paul A.Anderson, Ilze K.Berzins, FrankFogarty, Heather J.Hamlin, Louis J.Guillette Jr. – Contributions from Art Noxon Sound, stress, and seahorses combined. Seahorses exposed to loud ambient noise in aquaria exhibit primary, secondary, and tertiary stress responses at behavioral and physiological levels, necessitating allostasis at costs to growth, condition, and immune status. […]
California Audio Society 2019 Show
California Audio Society 2019 Show was held between July 26th-28th at the Hilton Oakland Airport. Dagogo hosted the show for its 9th year serving as the main audiophile show for the SF Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Special thanks go to Constantine Soo and his great crew of helpers and editors. […]
Who, What, Where, When and Why of the QuickSoundField
We’re talking Who, What, Where, When and Why of the QuickSoundField. In 2006, New England Digital contacted us about a digital sampling booth. Traditional dry rooms did not record enough real sound, the open mic in a studio was too roomy of a sound. The problem arose not due to the quality of traditional studio acoustics but because of the heavy level of electronic processing. […]
BassTrap Sound-Off: FuzzBalls vs TubeTraps
Sept 2018 by: Arthur Noxon – Acoustical Engineer, President of ASC Is a bass trap nothing more than just a container of fuzz, building insulation? Many budget bass traps are essentially just that; foam blocks, containers of building insulation. TubeTraps are different, they have a complicated mechanical structure inside, But are the complications worth the added cost? […]
Room Break-up, the Audiophile’s Curse
Nothing, not even audio, is perfect all of the time. But most of the time, the audio system seems to behave just fine. Still, if you crank the volume up just one notch too high, in most systems, something changes and the system no longer sounds musical. What you are hearing is not cone breakup but room breakup. […]
What’s with HiFi These Days
What’s with HiFi these days? Nothing much, except it’s a new generation of people who are discovering it… It started in NYC in the early 50’s and kind of died out in the 90’s because of computers, home theater, downloads and earbuds. Now days, people are rediscovering HiFi, the adventure and delight it brings. […]
Buy Subwoofers Instead of Soundproofing
Dec 2014, comments submitted to Audiophile Review supporting Brent Butterworth’s article about multiple subs. There are other reasons to have multiple subs than just to minimize mode coupling… more subs can also mean quieter modes, less power delivering the same sound level, noticeably improved musical clarity and reduced bass boom next door. […]
More On Early Reflections
Comment to Audiophile Review, Roger Scoff, 6/19/14, Room Acoustics, “What gets you more, $10k …” The diagram showing the direct, 1st reflection and reverberation as being something that comes from the back corner reflection is misleading and should be corrected. The first side wall reflections only widens the apparent stage. The most destructive reflection, the second reflection, is the crosstalk reflection where signal from the left speaker hits the right wall and returns to the right ear. […]
Art Responds to Studio Performance Questions
Studio performance…Yes, FFT analysis has gotten pretty inexpensive since those early days in the mid 1980’s when we had to buy the Crown Techron 12 or 20 for something well over $10k…but regardless of when or how much it cost, once you have the FFT analysis, then what? Read along as Art Responds to Studio Performance Questions. If the FFT waterfalls look smooth and fast, does that mean the studio sounds good? […]
Church Carpet Not Good For Organists
Question I’m the organist at a church with a beautiful pipe organ in a historic stone church. I'm finding that church carpet is not good for organists I’m sure it sounded great in the old days they covered the floor with beautiful carpet years ago and lost the sanctuary lost its reverb. They won’t remove the carpet to get the reverb back….Do you know of any clear paint I can use to remove the carpet’s acoustics so I can get the reverb back into the sanctuary? Answer Carpets do absorb a lot of reverberation. Old school organ music is [...]
Limp Mass Membrane Bass Traps?
The formula f = 170/√(m x d) is often quoted as applying to limp mass membrane bass traps. The m term is surface weight (lb/sqft) of the membrane and d is the depth of the air cavity (inches) behind the membrane. This formula is often recommended to people who are designing membrane bass traps. A membrane bass trap is usually a wide, shallow box mounted on the wall with the front side of the box covered by a thin sheet, an airtight membrane of material. […]
Do Audio Measurements Correlate with Sound Quality?
Originally posted on AVS forum, Dec 2013 Do Audio Measurements Correlate with Sound Quality? Sometimes yes, but usually not, depending on the kind or version of the Audio Measurement being made. My primary experience with audio measurement is in the realm of room acoustics so this will be the context of my response to this question. […]
What is MTF for sound?
The sonic Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) is how the clarity of sound or intelligibility of speech is physically measured. A similar system exists for measuring the clarity of lenses in optics. It appears as a 3-D plot with the modulation level (dB) on the vertical axis, the modulated tone (Hz) on a horizontal axis and the modulation rate (Hz) on the other horizontal axis. A typical data point would be a modulation level of 15 dB for a Modulated Tone of 250 Hz at a tone burst or modulation rate of 8 Hz. […]
How many people could Jesus talk to at once using his natural voice?
Back in 2009 I received a philosophical question, something not too different from “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” It’s about how many people could hear the voice of Jesus at one time. Below I show the actual question followed by Section 1 of my answer. Here I idealized the physical listening conditions so that I could establish the maximum possible number of listeners. In later sections, which I will soon publish, I work towards more practical answers. […]
Ever Wonder What To Do About Sub Bass Energy?
Sub bass is the frequency range the subwoofer make, typically below 45 Hz. It’s pretty difficult to buy bass traps large enough to absorb the power being put out by subwoofers. A subwoofer might be rated at 1000 watts. One horsepower is about 750 watts, so a subwoofer is rated as a 1¼ horsepower air pump. What happens to all that power anyway? […]
A Sonic Sculptured Listening Room
One time I was asked to dial in a huge HiFi demo room at a high-end audio show in Newport, CA without using TubeTraps. The room was a large conference room, with a 12’ ceiling and the width and length were both in the 50 to 60’ range. It was a huge room and it would take a truck load of TubeTraps to try to get this room to play. It was running big Magico speakers, Spectral electronics and MIT cables and that package deserved to sound great. […]
What is Sonic Shimmer?
Let’s ask ourselves, What is Sonic Shimmer? When it comes to measurement or assessment tools in acoustics, we have a problem when the tools we have do not agree with subjective interpretations. In this case we need a shimmer meter to better study and understand concert hall acoustics and guitar pedal sound, because in both venues, the concept of shimmering sound is a valued commodity. […]
Remove a Corner Bass Trap and the “Suck-out” Went Away?
Remove a corner bass trap and the “suck-out” went away? It happened to Bob Hodas once and it was so unusual that he mentioned it in a MIX article on room acoustics. Actually, what he ran into could easily have been a live example of a technique we use in the design and set up of listening room and control room acoustics. […]
Sonic Clarity & Flat Frequency Response
Contrary to popular belief the big problem with bass in HiFi is not lumpy bass, standing waves, room modes, hot spots and suckouts. We need to ask ourselves: Why is sonic clarity more important than a flat frequency response in your room? The big problem is sound masking. That’s right, sound masking is what happens when an unwanted sound overpowers our ability to hear and discern the fine details of a wanted sound. […]
Voicing the Church
There are two aspects to Church Acoustic projects. One is the acoustic material to be used and the second is the strategy for the application of this material. Our approach when voicing the church is performance oriented. The church wants to be bright yet clear sounding. This means we add as little acoustic material as possible and carefully position it so as to best control only the problem reflections. […]
Michael Jackson and ASC
Bruce Swedien had recorded and mixed Thriller in 1982 and by 1987 he was still the top recording engineer in the world. Bruce, Michael Jackson and ASC helped make it happen. During the time Thriller was being made, I was graduating from college, my second masters degree, this time in physics, prior degree was Mechanical engineering/acoustics. […]
Subwoofers: Source of Noise Pollution
The home theater subwoofer can become a neighborhood noise pollution problem. You’ll know if you get phone calls that interrupt your late night movies. Lawnmowers and leaf blowers may be the scourge of noise pollution during the daytime but late at night, it’s the subwoofer. […]
Persian Rug Acoustics
The timeless image of HiFi is a high flying Persian carpet sporting a listening chair and a pair of loudspeakers. Yes, it’s true. A good sound system set up on a Persian carpet can transport any audiophile into a wonderful adventure in some other place and time. […]
