AGS-CO1
Forest sound field
Within a forest, row upon row of countless trees exist.
Sounds emitted in a forest are said to be returned as rich sounds in the mid-to-high frequency range through the repetitive, complicated scattering offered by the trees, including sounds that are scattered by the tree trunks in the foreground, sounds that pass through the trees and scattered behind the trunk, and sounds that move about the trees through repeated irregular reflections of sound before returning to the listener.
On the other hand, because low-frequencies have a longer wavelength than the tree trunks, the influence from the scattering is small and quickly fades away.
Researching the sound environment of forests
In addition to the reverberations produced by forests, sound is thought to behave differently in a forest compared with an open field or indoors surrounded by walls.
Forests exert a noise reduction effect, and the ground and trees within the forest have a sound-absorption effect.
The sound environment of forests has long been studied by various researchers throughout history, and numerous accounts of the results of this research have been published.
AGS: Designed to greatly improve indoor sound fields
At Nihon Onkyo Engineering, their interest in the mysterious sound environment of forests has led us to research focusing on the special behaviour of sound waves diffused using mechanisms similar to the trees of a forest.
They also believe that everyone feels a certain magical comfortableness when in a forest.
Their development of the Acoustic Grove System was a result of their exploration of the connection between the acoustic mechanisms of the forest and this comfortableness.
In conventional acoustic designs for narrow rooms that do not have a particularly large space (such as with concert halls), the combination of reflective surfaces and sound-absorbing surfaces result in unnatural and peculiar characteristics in sound reflections.
Moreover, when a loud sound is emitted in a small room, the acoustic energy becomes saturated, resulting in a sound field with poor distortion.
To avoid such acoustic disturbances, they devised the AGS as a mechanism to achieve an ideal acoustic space similar to that of a forest.
AGS-CO1 is a corner type designed for installation in the corner of a room.
It is also designed to be seamlessly placed alongside the ST1.
By placing it in the corner of a room, where bass sounds tend to accumulate, the sound field is greatly expanded and the grip of the mid- and low-frequency ranges is increased, dramatically enhancing the dynamism of the music.
The sense of positioning and timbre is improved across the entire frequency range, improving the quality of the sound stage.
Dimensions: 40(W)×40(D)×150(H) cm, approx. 37 kg
The effect it brings
Acoustic Grove Systems produce the following three main acoustic effects.
- Suppression of low-frequency standing waves
- Preventing adverse effects of intense reflected sound waves
- Control over sound-absorption characteristics according to the application
These effects allow for clearer sound localisation and comfortable reverberation in the spreading of sound with the desired qualities of crisp lower frequencies and genuine sounds, resulting in an innovative sound space that is otherwise impossible to achieve.
