Noise Control Manual for Residential Buildings (Builder's Guide)

Book Description

More people are spending more time at home making more noise--yet they want quiet environments. This is the only book available that tells designers, planners, architects, and builders how to give homeowners and apartment-dwellers the quiet they crave. Simple enough to be used by the average do-it-yourselfer (it avoids complex mathematics), yet so complete it will satisfy the requirements of knowledgeable building professionals, this authoritative guide gives you one-stop answers on designing, specifying, testing, and retrofitting residences to meet the new environmental standards and satisfy our need for peace and quiet.

Customer Reviews:

Invaluable Reference.......2002-09-10

This is an invaluable reference. I've been searching for weeks for materials related to noise control in a residential setting. I've found only one "expert" in the yellow pages and he charges hundreds for his advice. This book provides all of the information he provided and more. Although, the editing isn't great and there are typos and other errors, the content is first-rate. For once, this book was exactly what I expected.

Invaluable Reference.......2002-09-10

Noise Control Manual For Residential Buildings.......2000-03-25

El Libro del Sr. Harris ha sido de gran ayuda en mi trabajo como Ingeniero Acústico. Sin lugar a dudas es un texto que debe estar en la biblioteca de toda persona ligada a la arquitectura, construcción y control de ruido. Un Gran Libro.

The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933

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Good history of modern sound system development
Brilliant and innovative approach to the history of architectural acoustics
Impacts of the ideals of modernity
The Soundscape of Modernity
Sounding the History of Acoustics

The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933
Emily Thompson
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262701065

Book Description

In this history of aural culture in early-twentieth-century America, Emily Thompson charts dramatic transformations in what people heard and how they listened. What they heard was a new kind of sound that was the product of modern technology. They listened as newly critical consumers of aural commodities. By examining the technologies that produced this sound, as well as the culture that enthusiastically consumed it, Thompson recovers a lost dimension of the Machine Age and deepens our understanding of the experience of change that characterized the era.

Reverberation equations, sound meters, microphones, and acoustical tiles were deployed in places as varied as Boston's Symphony Hall, New York's office skyscrapers, and the soundstages of Hollywood. The control provided by these technologies, however, was applied in ways that denied the particularity of place, and the diverse spaces of modern America began to sound alike as a universal new sound predominated. Although this sound -- clear, direct, efficient, and nonreverberant -- had little to say about the physical spaces in which it was produced, it speaks volumes about the culture that created it. By listening to it, Thompson constructs a compelling new account of the experience of modernity in America.

Customer Reviews:

Good history of modern sound system development.......2007-07-30

My review will be brief. I basically agree with several other reviewers. This book is well written. Given that it is an MIT Press publication it is academic in approach. So it can be wordy and a little dry, but is well researched and documented. I appreciate the thorough references & illustrations.

Basically this book reinforces that many of the major concepts that are fundamental to audio systems and acoustics were developed by the 1930s. It clearly reinforces that we stand on the shoulders of those that came before us.

As a side note I think the basis of analog color television was worked out in the '20s. It's amazing the power of concentration and insight early designers had, and they lacked the modern tools we have today.

This is a must read for a history of acoustics & sound system development in the previous century and it's impact on out modern world. However, it is not a light, topical title.

Brilliant and innovative approach to the history of architectural acoustics.......2006-01-16

The way that this book approaches the history of sound in the early twentieth-century is truly unique. Thompson catalogs the events from 1900-1933 from four different perspectives, each perspective in its own chapter. The explanation of the science involved in the evolution in sound is done extremely well; easily understandable to the non-technical person, and yet with enough detail to satisfy the technically minded. I am an engineering student and bought this book for a project for my noise control engineering class-a graduate level class-and it provided extremely useful to me in describing how the scientific community changed and evolved in the area of acoustics.

So many differently things were happening all at once during this time period. Books that focus solely on science and the scientific community totally disregard the social atmosphere that drove the scientific community to achieve as they did. Also, any social history would be remiss in omitting the contributions of the scientific community in a time period where science was celebrated and embraced by society. Thompson does a wonderful job of showing the history of both areas and how they interrelate to one another.

What follows is a brief outline of what the book includes and how it is presented:
Thomspon uses architecture, and the science of acoustics used to aid in design, as milestones in the development of what she refers to as the 'soundscape'. She begins with opening night at Symphony Hall in Boston on October 15, 1900, and ends with Radio City Music Hall, which opened December 27, 1932.

The introduction and brief overview is given in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 begins with opening night of Symphony Hall and how the work of Wallace Sabine impacted the design of music hall. It also gives a brief history of earlier attempts at sound control, which illustrates just how significant Sabine's work was for both the scientific and architectural community. Chapters 3 through 6 each cover the time period 1900 to 1933 from four different perspectives.

Chapter 3 follows the work of the scientists throughout this period who, by building on the work of Sabine, focused their careers in the study of sound and developing the science of "New Acoustics". The chapter catalogs the development of the new tools available to accurately measure sound, new techniques to measure sound and the new language used to define sound.

During this time period, the sounds of a city dramatically changed from human sources to mechanical sources. This created new challenges in noise control, which had previously been addressed by controlling the behavior of the people causing the noise. This type of noise control became obsolete once mechanical noise became prevalent. Chapter 4 addresses these changes and how the public dealt with the changes in the problem and meaning of noise.

Chapter 5 restarts the period again, this time focusing on how the technology of architectural acoustics, the science that Sabine basically invented with his groundbreaking work outlined in Chapter 1 & 2, was used indoors to alleviate the problem of noise. This chapter follows the new acoustical material industry which was focused on new building technologies dedicated to isolating and absorbing sound. It tracks scientific knowledge being applied to create sound-engineered buildings, which were designed to keep noise out of a building, and how this eventually became known as 'modern noise control'.

Chapter 6 shows how the electro acoustical technology moved out of the lab, where it was developed to measure sound, into the world. Microphones, loudspeakers, radios, public address systems and sound motion pictures were all world applications of the lab technology which filled the soundscape with electro acoustical signals. It also shows the rapid change in the soundscape that this new electric acoustic sound bears little resemblance to the sound of 1900. So little resemblance that Sabine's reverberation formula failed to describe it, forcing the equation to be revised, signaling the final transformation of the soundscape.

Chapter 7 finishes off the time period with the opening of Radio City Music Hall.

Impacts of the ideals of modernity.......2003-01-23

Thompson focuses on the role of modernist tendencies in the construction and commodification of the auditory culture of America in the early twentieth century. She looks not only at the science of architectural acoustics but their linkage to the new recording technologies and general changes in the aural landscape of New York and elsewhere. We discover the completeness of the modernist retreat from the world into skyscrapers which had among their attributes the ability to silence all the outside noise of life. Thompson displays how the perception and creation of sound is absolutely coupled to a culture and its historicity. By doing so she links herself to the great French historian of the senses, Alain Corbin, who wrote Village Bells and allowed us to rediscover the sounds of the eighteenth French countryside and the culture that created it. To read a work written in such a provocative and entertaining way is a wonderful experience and to have such an experience with a book that centers around a topic as possibly dull as architectural acoustics is doubly impressive. As more talented historians are "coming out of the woodwork" and lending their abilities to the study of aurality our picture of the world past is quickly becoming a more vivid and less silent one.
Secondly, I fell the need to criticize one reviewer's critique. One, though F Murray Schafer may have helped create a new field of study and generated concern for a the loss of a particular kind of soundscape I think criticizing an entire book because you have a semantic disagreement about the title with the author is slightly ridiculous. Thompson states her differences with Schafer in the first couple hundred words. If it was that upsetting, just take the book back. I personally find Schafer's writing quite lacking in theoretical vigor and drawing on questionable statistical evidence. Secondly, Thompson does in fact go well beyond just discussing the technical "progress" made in the field of acoustics by looking at the reasons that a culture would look to alter its sound in the first place.
A fantastic book. I hope she writes more.

The Soundscape of Modernity.......2003-01-14

"The Soundscape of Modernity," is the title of Emily Thompson's book. However, it has little to do with soundscapes or modernity and everything to do with the less-sexy sub-title (in very small print), "Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1033."

Despite the author's attempts to re-define R. M. Schafer's meaning of "soundscapes," she fails to connect the thrust of her exposition to the more resonant and common significance of the term and thus obscures and distorts the meaning of both the term and concept. The author confines her discussion to changes of the performance, creation, and perception of sound in our culture during the first third of the last century due largely to the engineering and construction of interior architectural spaces and related supporting technologies. Unless one can successfully bestow on the interior of Boston's Symphony Hall or the Radio City Music Hall the rational equivalent of soundscape (aural) as landscape (visual), one cannot expect to make the transition and apply the term "soundscape" to the acoustic result of those designs with any authority. It simply doesn't fit. The book, in the end, speaks nothing of soundscapes as they have come to be understood in the arts and sciences, but addresses, instead, architectural acoustics and the technologies that drive and/or enhance them. While the text is readable and historically loaded with informative discussion on the transformation of architectural acoustics, it is not consistent with the expectations contained in the title of this book.

I bought the book because the title suggested an illumination on the manner in which soundscapes - human and natural - changed during the first three decades of the 20th century. It delivered, instead, a very different, misleading, but nonetheless instructive narrative. As my interest in the work was more along the lines of that anticipation, I was somewhat disappointed especially because the book is so expensive.

Sounding the History of Acoustics.......2002-10-02

Those invited to read an academic book on acoustics might well decline because of a headache, or an urgent need to wash the cat, or the constant press of quality daytime television. It would be hard to convince them that such a book could be exciting, or even interesting, especially if it weighs in with the heft of a textbook. But a remarkable work by historian Emily Thompson, _The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900 - 1933_, ought to be enjoyed by non-specialists and those who know nothing about the science of acoustics. Thompson has written a comprehensive, well-referenced, but witty and entertaining book about an important subject whose influence is surprisingly pervasive.

Thompson briskly reviews acoustic history; before this century, listeners knew there were better auditoriums and worse, but no one really knew why. To create a new venue for the important Boston Symphony Orchestra, the architect consulted a young Harvard assistant professor of physics, Wallace Sabine, who may be dubbed the Father of American Acoustics. In 1895, Sabine had been asked by the president of Harvard to improve the terrible acoustics of the lecture hall in the new Fogg Art Museum. In studying the problem, Sabine learned that the important thing to measure within a hall was the time of reverberation, the dying out of sound echoing through the room. This seems obvious now, but was the founding insight for all subsequent acoustical thought. He developed an equation relating the absorbing power of the room and its furnishings to the reverberation time. When Boston's Symphony Hall opened in 1900, the acoustics were an overwhelming success with critics. There were carpers who gradually dissented from the praise, but the musicians and the audiences became familiar with the sound, and its reputation remains high. Making beautiful sounds is but one aspect of acoustics treated in Thompson's book. Chapters are also devoted to the shielding from ugly sounds which the machine age was producing. Legal remedies for noise were largely unsuccessful, but there were brilliant successes in architectural use of sound-absorbing material to keep out the din. Movies changed the way auditoriums sounded, and making them presented its own peculiar problems. They had to have their camera sounds deadened and their studio lots coated to damp echoes, and the air conditioning (necessitated because the noisy carbon arc lighting had been replaced by quieter but hotter incandescent) had to be acoustically insulated from the production.

Product Description

Acoustics, the science of sound, has developed into a broad interdisciplinary field encompassing the academic disciplines of physics, engineering, psychology, speech, audiology, music, architecture, physiology, neuroscience, and others. The Springer Handbook of Acoustics is an unparalleled modern handbook reflecting this richly interdisciplinary nature edited by one of the acknowledged masters in the field, Thomas Rossing. Researchers and students benefit from the comprehensive contents spanning: animal acoustics including infrasound and ultrasound, environmental noise control, music and human speech and singing, physiological and psychological acoustics, architectural acoustics, physical and engineering acoustics, signal processing, medical acoustics, and ocean acoustics. This handbook reviews the most important areas of acoustics, with emphasis on current research. The authors of the various chapters are all experts in their fields. Each chapter is richly illustrated with figures and tables. The latest research and applications are incorporated throughout, e.g. computer recognition and synthesis of speech, physiological acoustics, psychological acoustics, thermoacoustics, diagnostic imaging and therapeutic applications and acoustical oceanography.

With a Foreword by Manfred R. Schroeder

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Acoustics and Noise Control
B. J. Smith , R. J. Peters , and Stephanie Owen
Manufacturer: Addison Wesley Longman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0582088046

Acoustics and Noise Control Handbook for Architects and Builders

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Acoustics and Noise Control Handbook for Architects and Builders
Leland K. Irvine , and Roy L. Richards
Manufacturer: Krieger Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0894649221

Book Description

This handbook covers the important acoustical considerations in the design of buildings of all types. It describes what to do and what not to do in many situations and includes precautions against particular problems that may arise. Useful data is given on the acoustical performance of most common building materials and on design considerations for many specific types of buildings and spaces. Included are chapters on noise and vibration control of mechanical systems, design considerations for electroacoustic systems, community noise control, and industrial noise control. Here is a practical, hands-on design tool, embodying the combined knowledge and experience of two acoustical consultants, each practicing for more than 30 years.

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Acoustics, Noise and Buildings
Peter Hubert Parkin , and Henry Robert Humphreys
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Acoustics & Sound | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

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Acoustics, Noise, and Buildings
Peter Hubert; Cowell, J. R.; Humphreys, H. R. Parkin
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NP95YE

Noise Control in Buildings: A Guide for Architects and Engineers

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Noise Control in Buildings: A Guide for Architects and Engineers

Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill (Tx)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Room and building acoustics and noise abatement

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Room and building acoustics and noise abatement
Willi Furrer
Manufacturer: Butterworths
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0007EGGIE

Acoustic insulation factor: A rating for the insulation of buildings against outdoor noise (Building research note)

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Acoustic insulation factor: A rating for the insulation of buildings against outdoor noise (Building research note)
J. D Quirt
Manufacturer: National Research Council Canada
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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