Estimate RT60, the time it takes sound to decay by 60 dB in a room. Enter room dimensions and average absorption to calculate room volume, surface area, equivalent absorption area, and estimated reverberation time.
Room volume:
The calculator multiplies room length, width, and height to estimate room volume.
Total surface area:
The floor, ceiling, and wall areas are added together to estimate the total room surface area.
Absorption area:
The surface area is multiplied by the average absorption coefficient to estimate equivalent absorption area.
An RT60 calculator helps estimate whether a room may sound dry, balanced, live, or overly reverberant. It can be useful for studios, classrooms, offices, home theaters, churches, rehearsal rooms, restaurants, and meeting spaces.
This is a simplified estimate. Real acoustic design may require frequency-band calculations, actual material absorption data, seating details, furniture, doors, windows, and on-site measurements.
This calculator uses a simplified Sabine-style RT60 formula:
RT60 = 0.049 × V ÷ A when using feet
RT60 = 0.161 × V ÷ A when using meters
RT60 means the time it takes sound in a room to decay by 60 decibels after the sound source stops.
For speech rooms, a lower RT60 is usually better. Many offices, classrooms, and meeting rooms are often more comfortable around roughly 0.4 to 0.8 seconds.
You can lower RT60 by adding absorption such as acoustic panels, carpet, curtains, upholstered furniture, ceiling clouds, or other sound-absorbing materials.
No. RT60 can be different at low, mid, and high frequencies because materials absorb different frequencies by different amounts.