Reverberation time (RT60) is a human-made standard scalar measure of a room's reverberant decay, defined as the time for the reverberant sound energy to fall by 60 dB after the source stops. Parameters: (1) the 60 dB decay convention (the standard that makes the value comparable across rooms), (2) the measurement method (impulse response, Schroeder integration, or extrapolation from a shorter decay such as T30), and (3) the room and frequency band being measured. It persists as the governing metric of architectural acoustics — codified in ISO 3382 and building standards, taught in acoustics curricula, and used to specify and verify concert-hall design. [formal: tempus reverberationis | substrate: mind | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.6]
Accepted ontology entry
reverberation-time
Reverberation time (RT60) is a human-made standard scalar measure of a room's reverberant decay, defined as the time for the reverberant sound energy to fall by 60 dB after the source stops. Parameters: (1) the 60 dB decay convention (the…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made standard measure of a room's reverberant decay, built to persist in architectural-acoustics literature, ISO standards, and concert-hall design and verification practice.
Names and aliases
- reverberation-timeen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmss0y7r700vsh7yuppfym4fzINSTANCE_OF →
RT60 is a scalar descriptor extracted from an audio signal (the room's impulse response) — the same kind of object as zero-crossing-rate and spectral-energy, both accepted INSTANCE_OF audio-feature. It fills the rung of the feature family that characterizes the room rather than the source. Nearest existing kind: audio-feature (the 'measurement' entry's accepted definition carves measurement error, so it is not the target sense).
- cmr9uz3vv00elhcxfruyltnd4DEPENDS_ON →
Reverberation time is an acoustic measurement of how long sound decays in a space. It is operationally defined and quantified by measurement procedures. Remove measurement and reverberation time cannot be determined or used as an engineering parameter.
- cmsuhind0006u3ilrv085tqa5SERVES →
Reverberation time as a metric serves the design, evaluation, and optimization of concert halls. The metric exists to further concert-hall acoustic quality — servant (reverberation-time) points at master (concert-hall). Remove concert-hall application and reverberation-time as a design parameter loses its primary purpose.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 15, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC
- Content hash
- 8eddac8189a435ad14583d8a54f2943de207ea8afaa320525c8ee1310c7e89d0