A multi-rate decay model to predict energy-based acoustic parameters in churches

Multi-rate decays are sometimes observed in room acoustics, appearing when markedly different volumes are coupled together and resulting in nonlinear decay curves. Such behavior appears in several churches at the very beginning of the decay process, although in conditions which cannot be explicitly referred to as coupling phenomena. Consequently, multi-rate exponential decays may be suitable to model energy distribution in this group of buildings, providing a more elegant and easily applicable set of equations in place of a previously defined "linear" model, used to adapt Barron's revised theory. The paper shows that the multi-rate approach ensures ease of calculation, without significant loss in accuracy in predicting energy-based acoustic parameters.