ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that the main reasons to measure a room are to learn how bad it really is and to assess the improvement after adding acoustic treatment. It also explains that small diaphragm omni condenser microphones are the best type for measuring rooms, and the comparison of 11 microphones ranging in price from very affordable to expensive shows that budget microphones are adequate for measuring rooms. In the old days, the common way to measure a room was to play pink noise through the loudspeakers, then measure the frequency response at the listening position in third-octave bands using a real-time analyzer and high-quality calibrated microphone. An important metric for room measurement is decay time versus frequency. When measuring the low-frequency response in a room, it is important to measure using both the left and right speakers sounding at once, plus the subwoofer.
