Benchmark
(Is it safe?)
09/10/2008 15:40
Re: Times is 'ard

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Quote:

So in answer to your question, you won’t hear many 64 foot pipes being played, (York certainly doesn’t have one) but there are plenty of 32 foot pipes, from which bottom C sounds at just 16 Hz.




Thanks. I'm not expert in this area - but I'm sure I heard that York Minster has a rank of organ pipes which are unusable for safety reasons - maybe 32 foot?

In any case, 16 Hz is enough to defeat most "hi fi" systems!




York has two 32 foot ranks, so that could well be true. NPOR York

Apart from the huge sound volume that these things produce, frequencies as low as 16 Hz (and their harmonics) can sometimes cause dangerous resonance in other parts of a building. Remember also that individual pipes are rarely played alone, so the beat frequency of two or more large pipes played together will be much lower still.

Digressing slightly, I once heard a story about a Christmas party at a bus depot, where the staff canteen turned dance floor was suspended above the bus garage. Everything was OK until the DJ played 'Rock Around the Clock', whereupon the everything started shaking violently and the building had to be evacuated.

Structural Engineers checked out the building and found everything to be safe, but they calculated the resonant frequency of the floor to be the same as Rock Around the Clock. Strange but true.

Now I really must go and get my Anorak and watch some trains.



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