MusicReasonRooms, Monitoring, and Acoustic Calculations
How much absorption would this target RT60 need?
Enter room volume, a target RT60, and any absorption you already have. This tool estimates the total equivalent absorption that target implies, as an idealized scenario, not a material recommendation or a diagnosis of your actual room.
Answer
Want to learn more? Decay, Absorption, and the Limits of RT60 Estimates
Understand
This tool rearranges the same idealized Sabine equation as RT60 Estimator to answer the reverse question. It does not select acoustic materials, guarantee a real room will actually reach the target decay, or diagnose an existing room's problems; it only states an idealized absorption scenario for that one target number.
Worked example
A 100 cubic meter room targeting a 0.5 second RT60 needs about 32.2 square meters of total equivalent absorption. Doubling the room volume to 200 cubic meters, at the same target, doubles that requirement.
Method and limitations
Required total absorption is A = 0.161 × V / RT60. When you supply existing absorption, the tool subtracts it to show the incremental amount still needed. A lower target RT60 always requires more total absorption, since the two are inversely related.
Why the total number is only half the decision
Reaching a target total absorption by covering one wall entirely versus spreading the same total across several surfaces produces genuinely different-sounding rooms, even though this calculator's single number cannot distinguish between them. Treat the total as a budget to plan around, not a specification for exactly where materials should go; that placement decision depends on the room's shape and how it is actually used.