Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Rating of the loudest college basketball arenas for Entertainment Sports Network (ESPN) magazine.

2011; Acoustical Society of America; Volume: 129; Issue: 4_Supplement Linguagem: Inglês

10.1121/1.3588402

1520-9024

Micah R. Shepherd, Stephen A. Hambric, Neal U. Evans, Dan J. Domme, Andrew Christian, Kieran Poulain, Michael D. Gardner, Andrew J. Orr, Bryan P. Cranage,

Music Technology and Sound Studies

A recent ESPN magazine article [“These go to 11,” ESPN the Magazine 15 Nov (2010)] ranked the top collegiate basketball arenas according to “noise potential.” The top five arenas were listed as Kansas University, Duke University, New Mexico University, Kentucky University, and Florida University. The rankings were established by a team of Penn State Acoustics students using the theory for sound buildup in large rooms, since actual measurements were infeasible. Both diffuse field and direct field contributions of the sound pressure were estimated at center court for octave band frequencies from 125 Hz to 4 kHz. Seating geometries, materials, and other relevant information were collected for each arena and used with estimated absorption coefficients to determine the room constant and critical distance. The diffuse field contributions were then combined with approximate sources terms based on the seating capacity of the arena, the proximity of the fans to the court, and whether they were students. The sound pressures were then combined into a total A-weighted sound pressure level and used to determine the ranking. The direct and reverberant contributions of each arena were then compared to establish the positive and negative aspects of each arena in terms of noise potential. This comparison reveals how Kansas and Duke reached the top of the ranking, despite having drastically different arena geometry and capacity.