EP0257483B1 - Spatial unit for recording and/or playback of acoustic signals - Google Patents

Abstract

Spatial unit for recording and/or playback of acoustic signals on and/or by recording media, wherein the spatial unit is designed as a transportable spatial cell which can be erected in closed spaces or in the open air and in which recording and/or playback equipment for the acoustic signals is arranged, the unit having space for at least one person and having the form of a sphere, a regular, sphere-like polyhedron or a part thereof. <IMAGE>

Description

The present invention relates to a room unit with the features of the preamble of claim 1.

Usually, for recording acoustic signals, such as music or speech performances, on sound carriers, e.g. Magnetic tapes, records or CDs, specially designed and appropriately constructed and furnished sound studios. Because of the relatively expensive production price of such recording studios, these are generally only available from larger broadcasting companies or from manufacturers of recorded or discussed sound carriers. This in turn means that these recording studios are occupied for a long time and their rental price is correspondingly high.

The ones recorded in the recording studios described above Music or speech performances are played back on very complex systems. However, this does not take into account that the respective room in which the reproduction system is arranged also has a decisive influence on the reproduction quality. This leads to the fact that the above-mentioned recordings are recorded or discussed with great effort, but the optimal variety and richness of sound are not fully effective due to the respective spatial conditions.

A room unit with the features of the preamble of claim 1 is known from DD-A-37333. The known room unit has a room cell referred to as a cabin, which is used exclusively for sound insulation, the known room cell having a horseshoe-like shape in plan view. Nothing is said in this publication about the arrangement of the recording and / or playback devices in the sound-absorbing cabin.

The present invention has for its object to provide a room unit of the type specified in the preamble of claim 1 so that recording and / or playback of acoustic signals is made possible by recording or playback devices with a particularly good quality.

This object is achieved according to the invention by a spatial unit with the characterizing features of patent claim 1.

The room unit according to the invention is based on the basic idea of generating an internal sound field within the room unit designed as a room cell, which makes up about 30% to about 70% of the volume of the room cell and which consists of an ideal mixture of direct sound, diffuse sound and sound resonances, so that on at any point in the sound field and thus at any point within the room cell an identical sound impression is created. To achieve this, the recording devices are arranged approximately in the center and the playback devices are also arranged approximately in the center or at a distance from the center within the spatial cell. Furthermore, the spatial cell has the shape of a sphere, a regular spherical polyhedron or a part thereof. This combination of the special arrangement of the recording and / or playback devices and the above-mentioned specific room geometry of the room cell, the proportions of direct and diffuse sound within the sound field are determined taking into account the sound incidence angle, which within the area of the sound field thus leads to a detailed, plastic sound event and thus to excellent recording and / or reproduction qualities of the acoustic signals to be recorded or recorded, which are, for example, music, speech or the like. acts, leads.

The area or areas of the room cell comprises an outer sound insulation layer and an inner sound reflection layer. Any conventionally used building material, such as plasterboard, chipboard, glass plate, plastic plate or the like, can be used to achieve this feature if these properties are thereby ensured. Particularly good results can be achieved if the room cell is made from panels that are provided with a soundproofing layer on their outward-facing side and a sound-reflecting layer on their inward-facing side.

These measures shield external noise sources particularly well, and excellent acoustics can be achieved in the interior of the room cell, although the resonance properties of the wall surfaces must be matched to the recording and playback units used. The usual materials, such as foamed plastics, mineral fiber insulation boards or the like, and hardened plastics, glass, metal plates or the like can be used as the sound insulation layer.

If the spatial unit according to the invention is used, for example, for the recording of acoustic signals on sound carriers, the signals recorded in this way have a richness of detail, sound balance and a natural auditory spatiality. Also when reproducing acoustic signals recorded on sound carriers, especially music, the spatial unit designed according to the invention again offers richness of detail, sound neutrality and a natural auditory spatiality, i.e. conditions that enable reproduction that is true to the original in all respects and can only be compared with elaborately built and equipped sound studios are or even surpass them.
The room unit also has other advantages. It switches off all external noise, such as street noise, noises from neighboring rooms or the like and at the same time prevents noises from the inside of the room cell from reaching the outside. The space unit designed according to the invention can thus be used ideally for samples, for example of bands or soloists, whose noise development is often perceived as disturbing by roommates. It also allows a completely encapsulated listening to acoustic signals stored on sound carriers, such as music, so that they are excellent for acoustic comparison of different playback devices, e.g. stereos, or for listening to recorded music, such as records, compact disks usually z. Are currently being listened to via headphones which are often perceived as disturbing. It is also possible to use the room unit designed according to the invention for tuning instruments, such as, for example, high-quality concert grand pianos or stringed instruments, the space cell being easy to transport so that it only has to be set up over the concert grand piano to be tuned, so that such an expensive and heavy instrument is not must be transported. It is also possible with the room unit to teach several soloists in one room at the same time, all that is required for this is that a number of room cells corresponding to the number of soloists is arranged in this room. Furthermore, with the spatial unit in terms of richness of detail, sound balance and auditory space, completely new sound carriers can be produced. In this case, individual soloists and / or soloist groups are each located in a room cell and the music generated from this under optimal acoustic conditions is fed to the recording device via corresponding mixing devices, so that a reproduction of those recorded in this way Pieces of music lead to results that are characterized in particular by the location sharpness and depth of the individual instruments or instrument groups and an excellent spatiality, so that a playback quality is achieved that corresponds to a live concert in a large cathedral with excellent acoustics, without the disturbing background noises always appear at such a concert. If the recording is also checked in a room unit and reproduced later, even lossless transmission is guaranteed.

In a preferred embodiment, the spatial cell has the shape of a cut ball or a cut regular spherical polyhedron. If the spatial cell is designed as a cut sphere, a position is preferably selected for the cutting plane that is below the center of the sphere, so that a spatial cell is created that is larger than a hemisphere. In such a room cell, the sound field described above, which is responsible for the excellent acoustic properties of the room cell, concentrates on a central area of the spherical section, the central area depending on the size of the respective spherical section being approximately over a fifth to approximately two thirds of that Height of the spherical section and extends approximately to the same extent over the diameter of the cut surface of the spherical section. With increasing size of the spherical section, the middle area also increases, so that in the case of large-volume room cells, which serve in particular to accommodate a larger number of people, correspondingly large sound fields are also available. The same applies to the cut polyhedron, the shape of which approximates the spherical section described above.

A preferred embodiment of the room unit provides that the room cell has the shape of a cut icosahedron. The icosahedron is cut off in such a way that it has a regular pentagon as the base, while the other polygon surfaces consist of equilateral triangles. The edge length of the regular pentagon corresponds to the side length of the equilateral triangle. A room cell designed in this way is particularly well suited for the recording and / or reproduction of the acoustic signals, since due to the special arrangement of the polygon surfaces these are reflected particularly well in a central region of the room cell, so that sound fields arise here, both during recording as well as when playing back to the user or the users cause an optimal spatial sound feeling. In addition, such a room cell still has a good appearance, so that it can be easily integrated into a living room without being perceived by the occupant as a nuisance. In such a room unit, the recording and / or reproducing devices for the acoustic signals are attached in the central area in which the sound field is concentrated. An arrangement of the recording and / or playback devices in the upper third of the central region is particularly suitable.

In order to enable easier entry and exit of the room cell in the embodiment described above, a further embodiment provides for the icosahedron section described above to be vertical to cut to the base surface that a hexagonal base is formed with a rectangular wall section which, with the exception of the rectangular wall section and the two immediately adjacent triangular surfaces adjacent to it, has the shape of the icosahedral section described above. In this case, the rectangular wall section serves to receive a door element that extends entirely or partially over the wall section. Of course, two or more door elements can also be arranged in the perpendicular, rectangular wall section. As the studies show, the arrangement of such a vertical wall section essentially does not change the acoustic conditions within the room cell.

The space unit designed according to the invention is preferably easy to assemble or disassemble, so that it can be erected at any location with relatively little means. If it is to be set up, for example, within an apartment, a base area or slab can generally be dispensed with, since the floor takes over the function of the base area or slab. It is of course also possible to provide the room unit with a corresponding base area, which creates a room cell that is closed on all sides. The base area is preferably designed as a base plate. Of course, however, other floor space constructions are also possible, with a room cell that is closed on all sides being particularly preferable where the existing floor space, which is, for example, the floor of a room or the natural floor when the room unit is used outdoors, is the reflection of the acoustic Signals adversely affected.

For easy and quick assembly and disassembly of the space unit designed according to the invention, the individual surfaces from which the space cell is formed each have strip elements on their edges, which extend partially or completely over the length of the edges. Preferably, the strip elements are assigned connecting elements which connect the strip elements to one another by clamping engagement. Such a room cell thus represents a self-supporting construction.

It can be assembled and disassembled easily and quickly without the use of tools. The strip elements preferably have recesses narrowed on one side on their connecting surfaces facing away from the plate edges, adjacent surfaces of the spatial cell being connected to one another via bolts arranged in the recesses.

In order to prevent an undesirable, disruptive influence on the acoustic conditions within the room cell by the recording and / or playback devices provided here, these are preferably arranged in a specially designed storage device. This storage device consists of a frame which has the shape of a pyramid provided with curved edges.

An embodiment of the spatial cell designed according to the invention, which is designed as a cut ball or as a cut ball-like polyhedron, has the advantage of better acoustic properties compared to a design as a solid ball, since resonances form approximately in the middle of the ball. Such resonance formation is avoided with appropriately cut bodies. Such an embodiment is therefore preferred from the solutions proposed according to the invention.

If the spatial cell designed according to the invention is designed as an icosahedron, the position of the sectional plane is predetermined by the shape of the icosahedron. In the case of a cut ball, the cutting plane is arranged in a position corresponding to a comparable icosahedron.

In the above text, an embodiment was described in which both the recording and the reproducing devices are arranged centrally within the spatial cell. However, it has been found that even better results can be achieved if the recording devices are arranged approximately in the center, but the playback devices are each arranged at the same distance from the center within the spatial cell. The imaginary center of the spatial cell or the cut sphere or the cut polyhedron should be regarded as the center. The distance to be selected depends on the overall dimensions, whereby a corresponding distance from the wall of the room cell must also be maintained.

In conclusion, it should be noted that the spatial cell according to the invention is not only suitable for conventional sound carriers, but also for other new media (ISDN system).

Figur 1

eine perspektivische Ansicht einer ersten Ausführungsform, bei der zur besseren Darstellung die Flächen entfernt sind;

Figur 2

eine perspektivische Ansicht einer zweiten Ausführungsform;

Figur 3

einen Schnitt durch zwei miteinander verbundene Leistenelemente und

Figur 4

einen Schnitt längs der Schnittlinie in Figur 3.

The invention is explained in more detail below using embodiments in conjunction with the drawing. Show it:

Figure 1

a perspective view of a first embodiment, in which the surfaces are removed for better illustration;

Figure 2

a perspective view of a second embodiment;

Figure 3

a section through two interconnected strip elements and

Figure 4

4 shows a section along the section line in FIG. 3.

FIG. 1 shows a first embodiment of the room unit, which has a room cell labeled 1 overall. Here, the room cell 1 has the shape of a cut icosahedron, the base of which is a regular pentagon and 15 polygon areas 4, which consist of equilateral triangles. Here, only the edges of the polygon surfaces are drawn for a better perspective representation. Recording and / or playback devices (not shown) are provided within the room cell 1 and are arranged in an area 5 of the room cell 1. Due to the special shape of the room cell, the acoustic signals generated or reproduced therein are reflected to form an optimal sound field on a central area of the room cell, depending on the respective size of the room unit, this central area approximately 30% to approximately 70% of the volume of the Makes up the room cell.

If the spatial unit shown in FIG. 1 is cut perpendicular to the line 6 shown there, the second embodiment shown in FIG. 2 is obtained. In this case, this has a space cell, designated overall by 10, which has a hexagonal base area 11, a rectangular vertical wall section, two laterally adjoining right-angled triangles 13a, 13b and 12 equilateral triangles 14, only a few of which are designated. As already described above recording and / or playback devices (not shown) are also provided in the room cell 10 and are arranged within the room cell 10 in an area which corresponds approximately to area 5 in FIG. 1. In the front vertical rectangular wall section, two door elements 15 and 16 are provided, the fillings of which are made of glass and thus cause exposure of the room cell 10. The room cell 10 shown in FIG. 2 is an embodiment which is preferably installed in living rooms. In order to ensure a sufficient door height, the door elements 15, 16 extend further upward into the equilateral triangle 14a arranged above and cover an area thereof. The base surface 11 and the surfaces of the triangles 13a, 13b and 14 and 14a each consist of two gypsum boards in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2, the individual surfaces at their edges using strips and connecting elements shown in detail in FIGS. 3 and 4 are connected.

As can be seen from FIGS. 3 and 4, a strip element 22 is arranged on the edges of the plates 20 and 21, which has a recess 26 with a lower narrowed area 26a on its connecting surface 23 facing away from the plate edges. Here, the strip element 22 has two angle sections 24 and 25, which are used to fasten the plasterboards 20 and 21, respectively. To connect two strip elements 22, a bolt 27 is arranged in their two recesses 22.

As can be seen in Figure 3, the plates 20 and 21 are spaced apart. This makes it possible to provide additional sound insulation material between the panels. Of course, instead of the two plates 20 and 21 shown in FIG. 3, one plate can only be present.

In order to assemble the room cell 10 shown in FIG. 2, which has a self-supporting construction, the surfaces to be connected to one another are aligned with one another in such a way that their strip elements 22 abut one another with their connecting surfaces 23, as shown in FIG. Before this, the bolt 27 was inserted into one of the connecting surfaces and brought into clamping engagement with the narrowed region 26a of the recess 26 by moving in the direction of the arrow 28 (FIG. 4), so that moving the other connecting element in the direction of the arrow 28 brings about a connection of the two surfaces without that a tool is required for this. In order to prevent the bolt 27 from slipping out of the recess 26, it has an annular bead 27a at both ends, which can be brought into engagement with a section 23a of the connecting surface 23. Of course, however, it is also possible to fasten the bolt in the position shown in FIG. 4, for example by welding it to section 23a.

The connecting element shown in FIG. 3 allows surfaces to be connected in a straight line. Is connecting the Areas at different angles are required, so it is only necessary to change the angles α 1 to α 4 shown in FIG. 3 accordingly.

Claims (9)

1. A spatial unit for recording and/or reproducing acoustic signals, said spatial unit being formed as transportable space cell (1, 10) adapted to be installed in closed rooms or outdoors and including a means for recording and/or reproducing which is provided within the space cell (1, 10), characterized in that said means for recording is located approximately centrally and said means for reproducing is also located approximately centrally or with a distance with respect to the centre, that said space cell (1, 10) has the shape of a sphere, of a regular sphere-like polyhedron or of a part thereof for generating an interior sound field consisting of an ideal mixture of direct sound, diffuse sound and sound resonances, that the interior sound field occupies 30 % up to about 70 % of the volume of said space cell (1, 10), and that the surface(s) of said space cell (1, 10) include an outer sound absorbing layer and an inner sound reflecting layer.
2. The spatial unit according to claim 1, characterized in that said space cell (1, 10) has a truncated icosahedral configuration.
3. The spatial unit according to claim 1, characterized in that said space cell (1, 10) has a truncated dodecahedral configuration.
4. The spatial unit according to claim 2, characterized in that said space cell (10) has a hexagonal base (11) and as wall portions a rectangle, two right triangles (13a, 13b) and twelve equilateral triangles (14, 14a).
5. The spatial unit according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said space cell (1, 10) can be disassembled.
6. The spatial unit according to claim 5, characterized in that said space cell (1, 10) includes a plurality of surfaces (14, 14a) which are provided with ledge members (22) at their edges, said ledge members being connectable with one another or disconnectable from one another to permit assembly or disassembly of said space cell (1, 10).
7. The spatial unit according to claim 6, characterized in that said ledge members (22) are associated with connectors (27) which connect said ledge members (22) with one another by clamping engagement.
8. The spatial unit according to claim 7, characterized in that said ledge members (22) have recesses (26) constricted on one side on the connecting surfaces (23) facing away from the sheet edges, and that adjacent surfaces (14) of said space cell (10) are connected by means of bolts (27) located in said recesses (26).
9. The spatial unit according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that said means for recording and/or reproducing is associated with a support means consisting of a frame structure having the shape of a pyramid provided with curved edges.

Images