Sound and vibrations are often perceived via the auditory and tactile senses simultaneously, e.g., in a car or train. During a rock concert, the body vibrates with the rhythm of the music. Even in a concert hall or a church, sound can excite vibrations in the ground or seats. These vibrations might not be perceived separately because they integrate with the other sensory modalities into one multi-modal perception.

This paper discusses the relation between sound and vibration for frequencies up to 1 kHz in an opera house and a church. Therefore, the transfer function between sound pressure and acceleration was measured at different exemplary listening positions. A dodecahedron loudspeaker on the stage was used as a sound source. Accelerometers on the ground, seat and arm rest measured the resulting vibrations. It was found that vibrations were excited over a broad frequency range via airborne sound. The transfer function was measured using various sound pressure levels. Thereby, no dependence on level was found. The acceleration level at the seat corresponds approximately to the sound pressure level and is independent of the receiver position. Stronger differences were measured for vibrations on the ground.

The measurement of frequency characteristics, like magnitude and phase, related to a specific transfer function of DC–DC converters, can be a difficult task – especially when the measured signal approaches the boundary of a small-signal model validity (i:e. 1/3 of the switching frequency fS). It is hard to find a paper where authors mention the measurement techniques they use to draw frequency characteristics. Meanwhile the presence of noise in the output signal does not enable to directly measure the gain and the phase shift between the input and output signals. In such situations additional analysis is required in order to achieve a reliable result. This paper contains a description of a few methods that can be used to analyse measured signals in order to determine the gain and the phase shift of a specific transfer function. They enable to verify mathematical models in a wide range of frequencies (up to 1/3 fS). The methods use signals measured in the time domain and can be implemented in mathematical software such as Matlab or Scilab.