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Human body as absorber?

Chromatischism

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I was doing some measurements to see if my bass nulls from a new speaker placement ended up where predicted by math. Sure enough they do and there is a cancellation at 130-140 Hz. I got curious to see if absorption would be effective near the speaker. I thought to myself, why not place a bag of carbon and salt water wearing clothes up against the wall and see how the measurement changes?

Sure enough, it works!

S400 human body absorber test.png
 

Hipper

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Frank Dernie

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Hipper

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There was a link the other day to a video which showed how body heat might affect the sound in venues:

 

Wombat

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Wombat

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Mnyb

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what I mean is that absorbers are mostly porous materials. human body is mostly fat on the outside (we can ignore the skin as LF should easily pass it). I don't think fat is an absorber

I'm more fat on the inside than i will admit :D but we must convert some acoustic energy to heat as the body vibrates with the music ?
 

Koeitje

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Its unfortunate they will start smelling after a while.
 
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Chromatischism

Chromatischism

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cool, but we don't actualy know if (or how much) this is result of absorbtion or deflection.
Yeah. There is likely some of both, but you are right that the body will change the dimensions of the space and push some of the energy away. Still, it's useful because it's a quick way to determine if modifying that specific location next to the speaker would modulate the dip.
 

Kal Rubinson

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Joking aside , I speculate that clubs are aware and concert venues are actually well aware
yea, the fat will vibrate in a small certain frequency range in which it will absorb.
I recall that, when the "new" Metropolitan Opera House was being designed in the early 1960's, the architects considered the acoustic influence of reduced exposure of "decolletage" in modern audiences. :rolleyes:
 

Alexanderc

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I have a colleague who insists that hair is the “most acoustically absorbent material.” Of course speaking in absolute terms like that is nearly guaranteed to make him incorrect, but it seems reasonable that hair could be very acoustically absorbent. Any studies or research on that sort of thing?
 
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