This much needed book on the acoustics of worship spaces has been produced by three widely-experienced authors and is worthy of consideration by architects, acousticians, builders, administrators and anyone interested in the history or construction of spaces for worship.The book has two parts. Part one gives a cursory review of the fundamentals of acoustics and its measurement, followed by properties of hearing, sound absorbing materials, planning for good acoustics in worship spaces, and means for achieving quiet. The section on "sound systems for clarity and reverberation" is excellent and should be read by every acoustician.Part two deals with the history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It goes into details of the construction of synagogues, churches and mosques through the ages, but particularly as they exist today.Important design considerations include: floor plans and sections, desirable reverberation times for music and for speech intelligibility, location of pipe organs and choirs, and means for controlling noise. The section on sound systems deals with the various ways of achieving speech intelligibility in spaces of widely different shapes, reverberance, and seating arrangements. The different types of systems considered are: a) central, b) distributed cone, c) distributed pew back, d) distributed directional horns, e) distributed delayed columns, and f) horizontal line sources. Detailed equipment information is given on microphones, control centers, direct radiator loudspeakers, directional horns, and distributed digital-signal processing. A useful section is included on the specification of sound systems, choosing types of equipment, installation techniques, tests, and service requirements.In dealing with worship spaces, it appears that synagogues pretty much all emphasize speech intelligibility (and so do Mosques). Spaces for Christianity cover a wide range from cathedrals, to mega-churches, to village churches. The spoken and musical characteristics for this range are translated into means for providing beautiful acoustics for organ music and uniform speech intelligibility. Loudspeakers are often everywhere and merging them into the architecture is usually a major consideration,The book ends with an appendix that gives references and notes to the text and acknowledgments.

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Experience in the last several years has indicated that worship environments can have both high speech intelligibility and high reverberation time. This may be accomplished by architectural means in some situations, but often electronic reinforcement systems are required. There are six basic types of such systems: (1) central, (2) dual central, (3) overhead distributed, (4) pewback, (5) overhead directional distributed, and (6) column distributed, each suited to a specific architectural-acoustical problem. With regard to music, relationships between the choir, organ, and congregation are equally important in the high-reverberation-time cathedral-like spaces and the smaller, more intimate environments. Many aspects important in the over-all design will be discussed and examples will be given.

o Perhaps in no other building type is noise control as critical as in music education facilities. Of obvious importance are the room acoustics considerations of spaces for music teaching, music performance, and rehearsal. Often, however, this limited aspect of the overall environment receives an inordinate amount of attention, to the exclusion of less glamorous features. Sound isolation between critical spaces and airhandling system noise control are often the determinants of the ultimate success and even the usability of the music teaching spaces.