Location: Frary Dining Hall. Frary Dining hall is located on north campus of Pomona College (Claremont, CA). Because this recording was taken at approximately midnight on a Sunday (after Snack), the steps were completely empty except for 3 other students. The archway encloses the steps leading into West side entrance of Frary Dining Hall.

Description of the space: The steps leading into the West entrance of Frary Dining Hall has tremendously high ceilings making it an optimal space for a number of acapella group practices, and instrument playing. The steps descending the stairs in front of Frary Dining Hall has a mural of “Genesis” by Rico Lebrun.

Recording setup. For this recording, the microphone was placed on top of a round table while the 18” diameter balloon was popped about three feet away. The recording device was TASCAM DR-40 Linear PCM Recorder. 

Acoustic Description: The descending Frary DIning Hall steps enclosed by the archway amplifies sound at a greater capacity that a number of other locations around Pomona College’s campus. Because the space is incredibly vacant with characteristics of an open container, the sound was able to bounce and echo off of the space at a higher capacity. It took the balloon pop approximately 3.33s to decay, which can be explained by the acoustic power of these steps.

Reverberation Times:

• Maximum Intensity:  86.21 dB
• Minimum Intensity: 29.42 dB
• 30dB drop after 1.26 s
• 50dB drop after 2.61 s
• Reached minimum intensity after 3.36 dB
• Reached maximum intensity after 0.224 s
• Returned to pre-pop intensity level after 3.33 s
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