I guess I don't understand the fixation on RT60 when most rooms fit into the "small domestic" room category... Are you measuring a theater or a large hall???
decay time happen on all rooms. so to see really diffrences there should be also a simulation that can calc reverb for small rooms IR. there are some reverbs in which you can add room size and it can calc the reverb. such a impulse you can load into REW and see rt 60 values. but i did not find a reverb that allow sound source placement and microphone placement. maybe there is some ?
today i ask the AI. it suggest and write this explain
Most consumer and studio loudspeakers have a mechanical and electrical decay time (driver ringing, enclosure resonances, port resonances) that is significantly longer than the actual acoustic decay of a damped small room. When audio experts try to measure a small room, they are often unknowingly measuring the decay of the speaker itself, leading to the false conclusion that "the room decay is erratic and unmeasurable."
To prove this, we can isolate the variables using geometric room acoustics simulation. If we use the
Allen & Berkley Image Source Method (which is implemented in toolkits like
pyroomacoustics), we can input exact room dimensions (Width, Height, Depth) and precise 3D X/Y/Z coordinates for an omnidirectional source and receiver.
What the simulation shows:
- With an Ideal Source (Delta Function): The simulator calculates the geometric reflections and energy dissipation over time. Even in a tiny room, the impulse response (RIR) shows a distinct, mathematically clean decay curve. It is perfectly measurable because the source stops radiating energy instantly (0 ms decay).
- With a Real-World Source: If we convolve that perfect room impulse response with the actual impulse response of a real-world loudspeaker (which includes its independent decay/ringing), the speaker's own resonance completely masks the early room decay.
Because a simulation allows us to use an ideal, zero-resonance source, it proves that the room's physical energy decay is absolutely real and measurable. The limitation we face in the real world is hardware-based, not physics-based.
With modern DSP, we could theoretically inverse-filter the loudspeaker's own decay to reveal the true underlying room decay. Would it be possible to implement a feature or look into a method within REW that helps separate or window out the known transducer decay from the room's response at low frequencies?
edit and this library can also calculate non rectangle rooms the google AI tell
The takeaway for our decay discussion:
By using a Python library like pyroomacoustics in Ray Tracing mode, we can generate a highly accurate Room Impulse Response (RIR) for literally any room shape—including L-rooms and attic spaces.
When you export this simulated impulse response into a .wav file and load it into REW, it will show you the mathematically true decay time of that specific geometry. Because the simulation uses an idealized, zero-resonance impulse source, the resulting T30 or EDT curves will be clean and linear.
This will serve as the ultimate proof: complex rooms and small spaces
do have a structurally cohesive, predictable decay rate. The messy, erratic decay curves we see in real-world measurements are a byproduct of real-world speaker transducers (like cabinet resonances or passive radiators ringing), not an inherent unmeasurability of the room itself.