Mushrooms

A further blip from our gig at the Royal Albert Hall last night.

The acoustics of the Hall used to suffer badly from an unfortunate echo caused by the cove in its ceiling. Following tests in the late 1960s the recommendation to tackle the problem was to hang fibreglass acoustic diffusers, fondly nicknamed mushrooms, from the auditorium's ceiling. There were originally 135 of them but in 2001, following more advanced testing, 50 were removed and the remaining 85 were reconfigured. This improved the quality and immediacy of sound for the audience.