A Vintage Acoustic Hall

Last summer, while researching an acoustic levitation device supposedly invented in the early-1600s, my youngest son and I were invited for a personal tour of Riverbank Acoustical Laboratories in Geneva, Ill. Six years before the existence of RAL, in 1912, it was here on Colonel Fabyan’s Riverbank Estate that this same acoustic levitation device was constructed from instructions discovered in an old book. After several failed attempts to make the device fly, Fabyan finally asked acoustics expert and Harvard Professor, Wallace Clement Sabine to examine the situation. Professor Sabine quickly debunked the acoustic levitation device as a hoax, but convinced the grateful Colonel to construct on the estate the world’s first scientific acoustics testing laboratory; Riverbank Acoustical Laboratories. Presently, at 102 years old, RAL continues to be the leader in certified acoustics testing.