Equalizability of room acoustics

The sound quality of public address systems is largely dependent on the acoustical characteristics of the room or hall in which the sound is heard. Furthermore, the quality of sound often varies significantly over the listening space. Hence, even with good quality equipment (amplifiers and loudspeakers that contribute a minimum of linear and nonlinear distortion), the quality of sound that reaches the listeners´ ears depends largely on the acoustics of the listening space. A theoretical framework that is useful for quantifying the equalizability of rooms is described. From this, the necessary and sufficient conditions for the equalizability of the rooms are derived, and an easy-to-perform sufficiency test is given. It is evident from this that equalization schemes of the multi-equalized-loudspeaker variety offer the best prospects for psychoacoustically suitable room equalization. Experimental results from a real room are given