I finally tested that theory about Stonehenge being a sound mirror

I spent last weekend at the Salisbury site with a friend who works in acoustics. We played low frequency tones near the bluestones and recorded the echoes from different spots, expecting some kind of amplification. But the results were totally flat, no resonance at all. Has anyone else tried something similar and gotten weird or unexpected data from a famous monument?

2 comments

2 Comments

miles_jackson95d ago

Blew a bunch of money renting high-end equipment to test Stonehenge as a giant speaker. Turned out it's just a really old pile of rocks that doesn't do anything special. Guess the ancient druids weren't putting on underground raves after all.

the_lee4d ago

...and honestly @miles_jackson9 you might be onto something there, cause even the serious acoustics guys came away scratching their heads. We tried a subwoofer right up against one of the standing stones, nothing. Then we moved to the center of the circle and hit it with a 40 Hz tone, still nothing. It's like the whole place is acoustically dead, no reflection, no standing waves, just a flat field with some big rocks in the middle.