Revision of Sabine’s reverberation theory by following a different approach to Eyring’s theory

Abstract

The room acostic theory was established based on Sabine’s reverberation theory. However, in Sabine’s theory, the reverberation time does not reach zero, even if the absolte absorption condition is satisfied. This is a contradiction of Sabine’s theory, and Eyring revised the reverberation theory to resolve this contradiction. In this paper, a theoretical framework for the consistent reverberation theory is presented. Using this framework, it was demonstrated that Eyring’s theory has a contradiction between the sond energy density in the steady state and energy decay from the steady state, which is absent in Sabine’s theory. Based on the proposed theoretical framework, Sabine’s reverberation theory was revised sing an approach that is different from that of Eyring. The reverberation time obtained sing the revised theory was shorter than that obtained sing Sabine’s theory and longer than that obtained sing Eyring’s theory. Reslts of sond ray tracing simlations were in better agreement with the vales calclated sing the revised theory rather than those calclated sing Sabine’s and Eyring’s theories.