Sound waves on a fluid stream, in a de Laval nozzle, are shown to correspond to quasinormal modes emitted by black holes that are physical solutions in a quadratic curvature gravity with cosmological constant. Sound waves patterns in transsonic regimes at a laboratory are employed here to provide experimental data regarding generalized theories of gravity, comprised by the exact de Sitter-like solution and a perturbative solution around the Schwarzschild-de Sitter standard solution. Using the classical tests of General Relativity to bound free parameters in these solutions, acoustic perturbations on fluid flows in nozzles are then regarded to study quasinormal modes of these black holes solutions, providing deviations of the de Laval nozzle cross-sectional area, when compared to the Schwarzschild solution. The fluid sonic point in the nozzle, for sound waves in the fluid, implements the acoustic event horizon corresponding to quasinormal modes.