Sabine’s law

acoustics

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July 13, 2026

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Sabine's law, developed by physicist Wallace Clement Sabine, is the foundation of architectural acoustics. It establishes a scientific basis for understanding how sound behaves in enclosed spaces, particularly focusing on reverberation time.12

Reverberation time is the duration it takes for a sound's intensity to decrease significantly after the source stops. Sabine discovered that this time is directly related to a room's volume and its sound-absorbing properties. His empirical formula, RT = 0.05V/A, quantifies this relationship, where RT is reverberation time, V is volume, and A is total sound absorption measured in sabins.231

This principle is crucial for designing spaces like concert halls and auditoriums to optimize sound quality for speech or music by controlling echoes, sound blend, and external noise.45

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Wallace Clement Sabine
…the room is known as Sabine’s law, and a unit of sound-absorbing power, the sabin, was named after him. The first building designed in accordance with principles laid down by Sabine was the Boston Symphony Hall, which opened in 1900 and proved a great acoustical success.
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…the room is known as Sabine’s law, and a unit of sound-absorbing power, the sabin, was named after him. The first building designed in accordance with principles laid down by Sabine was the Boston Symphony Hall, which opened in 1900 and proved a great acoustical success.
Read More