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Echo Vs Reverberation

1) Sound waves travel through a medium by particles interacting and transmitting mechanical energy to neighboring particles. 2) When sound waves reach the end of a medium, they undergo reflection, refraction, and diffraction. 3) An echo occurs when sound reflects off of a surface over 17 meters away, creating a delay between the original sound and reflection being heard. A reverberation happens when the reflection is less than 0.1 seconds after the original sound, so they are perceived as one prolonged combined sound.

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456 views2 pages

Echo Vs Reverberation

1) Sound waves travel through a medium by particles interacting and transmitting mechanical energy to neighboring particles. 2) When sound waves reach the end of a medium, they undergo reflection, refraction, and diffraction. 3) An echo occurs when sound reflects off of a surface over 17 meters away, creating a delay between the original sound and reflection being heard. A reverberation happens when the reflection is less than 0.1 seconds after the original sound, so they are perceived as one prolonged combined sound.

Uploaded by

ragu
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Echo vs.

Reverberation
Sound is a mechanical wave which travels through a medium from one location to another. This
motion through a medium occurs as one particle of the medium interacts with its neighboring
particle, transmitting the mechanical motion and corresponding energy to it. This transport of
mechanical energy through a medium by particle interaction is what makes a sound wave a
mechanical wave.
As a sound wave reaches the end of its medium, it undergoes certain characteristic behaviors.
Whether the end of the medium is marked by a wall, a canyon cliff, or the interface with water,
there is likely to be some transmission/refraction, reflection and/or diffraction occurring.
Reflection of sound waves off of barriers result in some observable behaviors which you have
likely experienced. If you have ever been inside of a large canyon, you have likely observed an
echo resulting from the reflection of sound waves off the canyon walls. Suppose you are in a
canyon and you give a holler. Shortly after the holler, you would hear the echo of the holler - a
faint sound resembling the original sound. This echo results from the reflection of sound off the
distant canyon walls and its ultimate return to your ear. If the canyon wall is more than
approximately 17 meters away from where you are standing, then the sound wave will take more
than 0.1 seconds to reflect and return to you. Since the perception of a sound usually endures in
memory for only 0.1 seconds, there will be a small time delay between the perception of the
original sound and the perception of the reflected sound. Thus, we call the perception of the
reflected sound wave an echo.
A reverberation is quite different than an echo. The distinction between an echo and a
reverberation is depicted in the animation below.
A reverberation is perceived when the reflected sound wave reaches your ear in
less than 0.1 second after the original sound wave. Since the original sound wave is
still held in memory, there is no time delay between the perception of the reflected
sound wave and the original sound wave. The two sound waves tend to combine as
one very prolonged sound wave. If you have ever sung in the shower (and we know
that you have), then you have probably experienced a reverberation. The Pavarotti-
like sound which you hear is the result of the reflection of the sounds you create
combining with the original sounds. Because the shower walls are typically less than
17 meters away, these reflected sound waves combine with your original sound

waves to create a prolonged sound - a reverberation.

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