Acoustic performance of trial courtrooms, in the United States, is defined for federal courtrooms via the P-100 document and US Courts Design Guide, but there are no acoustic performance standards for county courtrooms. It is reasoned that county courtroom acoustic performance may be less than adequate due to the non-existent acoustic standards. Extensive acoustic research on classrooms has established that ALL occupants should receive equal acoustic performance at all receiver locations. Accordingly, there is a need for similar acoustic performance for the occupants in county and federal trial courtrooms. Soundscape Theory approach was applied in order to determine the appropriate methodologies and selected measurement techniques. Twelve courtrooms (4 federal, 4 county and 4 historic) located in Central Florida, were evaluated for Room Criteria, Noise Isolation Class, Reverberation Time and Speech Intelligibility Index. The results of the study indicate the acoustic performance for federal and county courtrooms is similar regardless of age or volume with low RC and NIC values. Although the RT values increased (beyond 1 second) as room volume increased, the desired STI values were within the desired acoustic performance range. This research indicates there is a need for standardized field measurement procedures and further refinement of the preferred acoustic performance standards that can be applied to justice occupancies.
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