News

Acoustic Calibrator Models CAL1250, CAL1150, and CAL1200 released, designed to calibrate sound level meters, noise dosimeters, and other acoustic measurement equipment. They offer selectable output levels of 94 / 114 dB, ideal tools for field validation.

Free app update with firmware upgrades for Larson Davis meters. Adds support for Series 821 meters. See the app store for more details.

Larson Davis has released Spartan Sound Level Meter Model 821IH, designed for Occupational Health and Safety professionals to assess workplace noise and employee exposure. Features built-in noise dose metrics, selectable time & freq. weightings, and more.

Sound Level Meter Model 831 is now being discontinued. We will continue to support legacy 831 units in the field. SoundAdvisor Sound Level Meter Model 831C offers all the same functionality, and new tools for connectivity and remote meter management.

Optional Room Acoustics firmware for SoundAdvisor Model 831C is released, offering tools to evaluate reverberation time in compliance with the latest measurement standards for measurement of room acoustics. Click to learn more.

Larson Davis has released the new AMC493C artificial mastoid is a precision mechanical coupler used to calibrate bone conduction hearing aids and audiometer bone vibrators.

Effective immediately the 730IS is now MSHA-approved for use in methane gas environments.

This version of DNA Software is compatible with the services first made available in LD Utility G4 V4.6.5 that provide background download and export of instrument data.

The Human Vibration Meter Model HVM100 is now discontinued. We will continue to support legacy HVM100 units in the field. We are also offering upgrade opportunities to the new Model HVM200 which offers connectivity and control via the LD Atlas mobile app.

Have a complex schedule? No problem. Get only the data you need, change trigger limits as needed, and alert just the right people when there is a problem using the optional 831C scheduler (831C-SCH).

Designers and architects like to say that they're visual people. But when brain surgery left Chris Downey completely blind in 2008, he refused to walk away from his 20-year career in architecture. Instead, he continued to plan and design buildings and went on to found Architecture for the Blind, a firm that specialises in creating spaces for the visually impaired. As Chris re-encountered his chosen profession without sight, he came to realise how limited his view of architecture had previously been. Now, by prioritising aspects other than visual aesthetics - in particular how buildings feel to the touch - he aims to create more engaging, multi-sensory spaces for everyone. Chris lives and works in San Francisco.

Visual input can overwhelm the brain. You get so much good, quick information via sight that you don't always process the other stuff. Now, when I move around, since I have absolutely no sight - no light perception, nothing, and I have absolutely no sense of smell - I'm really focusing on touch and acoustics. I perceive space via my sense of the body in motion, muscle movement and memory.

I feel like I could do a lot of [my] work better now than I did it before, because I think that I have a much more profound awareness of sensory composition and space. It's not a question of ignoring sight - I had 20 years of experience, plus all my life in general, focusing on the visual stuff. I can still draw what a building looks like. What's more unusual is being able to communicate what a space sounds like, or how it fits your grip. Right now the whole architectural pedagogy is visual. Our toolset is so visually minded.

The [headquarters for the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired] centre is three floors in a high-rise building and we've installed new staircases between the floors. If you're blind, you rely on the acoustics to understand the architecture around you. In the case of a stairwell that means relying on being able to hear other people going up and down the stairs, but also the conversations going on above and below you. Using metal treads would have been too noisy, so we chose a dense wood with a nice solid sound. A thud, not a clink. I'm always listening to architecture now. I tap my cane as I go into a space. I listen to find the orientation of the space; Is it high? Is it long? Where is there an opening? You can hear all of that by echolocation. I wanted to be able to test all these things in advance, because after a building's built, it's too late to alter them.

[We now use] a sound lab where they take the three-dimensional models that architects make and, by inputting all of the material characteristics, they can render it so you can hear the space before it's built. [...] You can go into their sound lab and hear what it will be like to be in, say, that music hall before it's built. You can hear the difference between different wall finishes, different construction layers, what happens when you add carpet on the floor, even different finishes on the seats. Everyone else does animated walk-throughs of their buildings. This is the same principle, but in this case you're hearing how it is to walk through the building.

Because of poor acoustics, students in classrooms miss 50 percent of what their teachers say and patients in hospitals have trouble sleeping because they continually feel stressed. Julian Treasure sounds a call to action for designers to pay attention to the "invisible architecture" of sound.