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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
A Sonic Tsunami
A Sonic Tsunami: Born in the front end of your listening room. December 9, 2016 Comment recently added to Sunday Morning HiFi #4 blog [...]
ASC’s 5.1 Surround AttackWall
ASC’s 5.1 Surround AttackWall Transcript of a seminar presented by Arthur Noxon P.E., President of Acoustic Sciences Corporation, at the Surround 2001 International Conference [...]
The Sound of Space Design
An invited lecture to Interior Design class at Oregon State College in 2012 The goal of this paper is to help interior designers open their [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. The concept [...]
Putting the Art in Articulation
This week we Putting the Art in Articulation as we look into the effect of poor articulation on tonal transients. These are sonic events that [...]
AttackWall – History
The development of the ASC AttackWall took place in two different parts of the country, by two different people, each working alone on two different [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
BassTrap Sound-Off: FuzzBalls vs TubeTraps
BassTrap Sound-Off: FuzzBalls vs TubeTraps Is a bass trap nothing more than just a container of fuzz, building insulation? Many budget bass traps are essentially [...]
Room Breakup 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 [...]
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 [...]
Buy Subwoofers Instead of Soundproofing
Buy Subwoofers Instead of Soundproofing Dec 2014, comments submitted to Audiophile Review supporting Brent Butterworth’s article about multiple subs. Good work Brent... There are other reasons [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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) [...]
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 [...]
What is MTF for sound?
The sonic MTF is how the clarity of sound or intelligibility of speech is physically measured. A similar system exists for measuring the clarity of [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Acoustic Carpets
All “acoustics” are not the same. We have sound proofing and then we have sound conditioning. Sound proofing means keeping the sound in the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Persian Rug Acoustics
The timeless image of HiFi is a high flying Persian carpet sporting a listening chair and a pair of loudspeakers. [...]