Acoustic Analysis Services

• Acoustic analysis of existing rooms
  Churches, conference rooms, lecture theatres etc.
• Evaluation of existing sound systems
• Acoustic treatment of rooms
• Guidance for acoustic performance at the design stage of a building
• Training in acoustics and sound engineering

Paragon Communications is the only independent acoustics consulting firm specialising in room acoustics in Ireland. Being independent of any relationship with equipment and material suppliers we are always in a position to offer our clients an optimised solution both in terms of quality and value for money.

Typical Problems

Historically, acoustic was more of an art than a science and whilst the theory and the fundamental laws have been understood for some time, measurement and prediction technologies lagged behind. Advances in electronics and computing have greatly increased our ability to measure and to model acoustic behaviour. Techniques that could have only been dreamt about twenty years ago are now common-place. However, the lack of analysis capability in the past has led to a legacy of buildings and rooms that have poor acoustics relative to their intended purpose.

Some examples of the type of thing we get involved with are...

• A large conference hall with poor speech intelligibility resulting from an excess of reverberation and some echoes.
• A large church containing very little sound absorption, with the result that speech intelligibility is virtually zero over most of its area. The use of an inappropriate sound system makes matters even worse.
• A medium sized lecture theatre with dimensional proportions that defy fundamental rules of acoustics. The result was that the room's reverberation was greater than that of rooms ten to twenty times its size. Intelligibility was not too bad but it was tiring for students to listen to for any length of time.
• A large outdoor sporting venue with poor intelligibility of its PA system. Following an analysis the problem was solved by re-directing some existing speakers and adding a few more.

Typical Solutions

Problems such as those described above can usually be improved by some acoustic treatment, by installing a good sound system, or by a combination of these two. Click on the link below to go to our sound system design page.