The museum's new contemporary wing featured a stunning elliptical domed ceiling. At the opening gala, the curator stood near one focal point of the ellipse and quietly told a colleague that the installation in Room 3 was "honestly terrible and the artist should stick to accounting." A donor standing 20 meters away, at the other focal point, heard every word with perfect clarity and reported it to the artist, who was also the donor's nephew.

The curator had discovered the whispering gallery effect — a well-known acoustic phenomenon where curved surfaces focus sound from one point to another, like a parabolic reflector. The elliptical dome concentrated speech from one focus to the other with almost no loss. Private conversations weren't private. Hushed criticisms became public declarations. The gallery became a machine for social catastrophe.

Sound waves traveling along a concave surface stay focused by continuous reflection. In an ellipse, all paths from one focus reflect to the other focus regardless of angle. This creates a zone where whispered speech at one point is clearly audible 20+ meters away while being inaudible to anyone in between.

The phenomenon is acoustic focusing, related to the geometry of the room rather than reverberation time. It can coexist with acceptable RT60 values because it's about directed energy, not overall decay.

The Moral: Room geometry creates acoustic surprises that RT60 alone won't reveal. Use SonaVyx impulse response measurement at multiple positions to map how sound travels through unusual spaces.