[Leica] Acoustics - more than you wanted to know

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On Mar 5, 2009, at 11:01 AM, Gary wrote:

>> Hi Jan - Beautiful violins! Just yesterday I was at our local
>> theater, comparing its acoustical qualities to a Stradivarius.
>> Check a photo of it at:
>> http://www.northcoastphotos.com/Lympa_2007_07_05.htm
>> It was built as a vaudeville theater in about 1920 when someone
>> really knew how to design un-amplified acoustics. While the theater
>> was recently being restored, I did the photo-documentation of the
>> project. A simple guitar solo or small orchestra without
>> microphones sounds wonderful there! But put a loud amplified band
>> in there and it all turns to mush.


The good acoustics of older concert halls owes more to the type of  
construction than to careful design. Older buildings featured a beam  
and masonry construction that was both massive and reflected sound  
well. Further, the ornamentation schemes were fussy and provided a  
number of angled and rounded surfaces that reflected sound to all  
portions of the hall. The acoustics of some halls were fabulous,  
although mostly created by accident. The old Carnegie Hall, the Milan  
Opera House, the Mormon Tabernacle, and Harvard's Sanders Theater  
were praised by musicians and audiences alike. In contrast, recent  
concert hall construction with stronger but lighter materials and  
modern design, flat surfaces, and austere decoration often reflected  
sound in unusual patterns, producing dead spots in the hall. A number  
of these halls have had to have extensive acoustical reengineering  
before the sound was up to the old standards.

For a number of years I had an office and lab in the Gramercy Park  
Stables, a building owned by the City Univ. of New York. True to it's  
name, the building was constructed around 1880 to house the horses  
and carriages of rich Gramercy Park area residents. It was  
constructed very solidly to bear the weight of the horses. A large  
riding paddock was on the ground floor to exercise the horses during  
bad weather. By the late 60s, when I worked there, the horses had  
moved out and the stalls converted to offices. The riding paddock  
became an auditorium. Both the RCA Symphony orchestra and the NY  
Symphony orchestra used the auditorium as a recording studio because  
its acoustics were exceptional and could not be duplicated modern New  
York buildings. Similarly Sanders Theater, built in the decade  
following the Civil War, was used as a recording venue by the Boston  
Symphony. Many of the great musical records were created in antique  
concert halls. In a similar sense, many great photographs were made  
by antique Leicas and lenses. They had a signature that can't be  
duplicated by modern equipment. Alas, they don't make cameras or  
concert halls like they used to.

Larry Z