Influence of audience on propagation of sound at low frequencies

Elena Shabalina , Michael Vorländer

At open-air festivals and large scale concerts subwoofers are often placed in a row in front of the stage. This arrangement provides even sound pressure level distribution over the audience area, but the audience itself often stands tightly packed in front of the stage. The sound waves from the subwoofers propagate therefore partly through the crowd and the propagation is strongly influenced by its density. An interesting effect that occurs is the reinforcement of lower frequencies at certain positions within the audience. This effect might be generated by interference of sound waves travelling partly through the audience and partly over the audience. The effect was shown by measurements, conducted at several rock concerts, and BEM-modeling. The paper presents measurement and simulation results; possible theoretical approaches to the problem are discussed.

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

Elena Shabalina, Michael Vorländer. Influence of audience on propagation of sound at low frequencies. Acoustics 2012, Apr 2012, Nantes, France. ⟨hal-00811159⟩