Dial Down to Dial Up

There is a counterintuitive audio engineering rule about how to make something louder. It sounds completely crazy. But it’s true.

To dial something up — don’t dial it up.

Dial everything else down.

This rule is especially true in physical spaces. In spatial experiences, we can’t turn up sound indefinitely, because there will be other sound sources nearby.

In museums, this rule applies even more to light than sound. Many collections objects require near-darkness. Lighting them too much means destroying them a little. So everything else has to seem as dark (ideally darker) for the experience to work.

Here’s the thing:
To dial something up — don’t dial it up.

Dial everything else down.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Induction loop. A type of assistive listening system, a loop of wire, that beams sound magnetically straight into hearing aids in public spaces. The hearing aid has to be set to "T" (telecoil) to get the signal. You can make small loops for individual exhibits, or perimeter loops for whole theaters.