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It sounds simple enough when acoustician Damian Doria explains how he “tunes” a building for optimal sound quality.

“Our main instruments are our ears when we’re tuning,” he says.

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But Doria’s goal, while easy to explain, is far from simple: He’s tuning the new Steinmetz Hall to provide acoustics on par with the best concert venues around the globe — a complete turnaround from the much-maligned sound quality that has plagued the Bob Carr Theater for years.

Orlando’s Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, which will open Steinmetz Hall in mid-January, proudly boasts on its website that the gleaming venue will be “one of the world’s most acoustically perfect spaces.”

Here’s how Doria is going to make that happen — and why it matters.

First off, his ears do have some high-tech help — machines send sounds in every direction of the venue so the acoustics of different sections can be tested. Special microphones search for “very, very low sounds that don’t belong there,” said Doria, co-founder of Stages Consultants, which specializes in acoustic excellence.

“We’re looking for noises we can stop, and we’re listening to musicians play so we can hear what we need to hear,” said Doria, who has decades of experience and lectures on performing-arts acoustics for the School of Drama at Yale University.

The sounds that don’t belong could come from downtown traffic, for example. Outside noise is a problem that can plague even the most high-profile venues, such as Carnegie Hall in New York.

“There are tons of [New York conductor Leonard] Bernstein recordings where you hear ambulances go by,” said Eric Jacobsen, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra music director.

But here, Doria has help from the very construction of the venue.

Steinmetz Hall is encased inside an exterior concrete frame. Between the hall’s walls and that frame are 437 18-inch steel and rubber pads. Their job? To act as shock absorbers and deaden any sound from traffic, trains and other ambient noise.

The hall will be rated N1 — meaning “if you’re of average hearing, you shouldn’t hear anything outside the hall,” said Doria a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and member of the National Council of Acoustical Consultants.

That top-of-the-line rating comes courtesy of the center’s board of directors. The city and county had approved funding to reach an N15 rating, recalled Kathy Ramsberger, president of the Dr. Phillips Center. But the board realized even to achieve that level of quality was going to require massive infrastructure work.

So the board decided “if we’re going to go through this, we ought to make it the best it can be,” Ramsberger said. The center raised an additional $25 million to cover the cost of the acoustical improvements as well as the hall’s ability to transform into multiple configurations.

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What did the extra money pay for? Concrete wall and floor thickness was increased to keep noise out, for one thing. All major, and noise-making, building systems — such as air conditioning, plumbing, and mechanical motors — were located outside the hall.

Most unique is the acoustic air gap that surrounds the Steinmetz Hall. In the lobby and bathrooms, the foundation is anchored in the ground. But when you step over the hidden gap into the hall proper, technically you are on those 400-plus sound-isolation shock absorbers.

Other details: The seats are an inch thinner than those in the Disney Theater to reduce interior sound absorption, and cork — which aids in noise reduction — is used in the flooring.

To make sure every sound that is supposed to be heard can be, Doria has devices that make noise from low to high tones — in a repeating whooping sound.

“They get very annoying after we’ve listened to them all day,” he said.

In the weeks Doria has been tuning the hall, he also has heard a couple dozen Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra musicians rehearse there.

“It was just terrific,” he said. “We could hear small groups of instruments and pick up the balance.”

To tweak the sound, Doria extends and retracts 70 mechanized fabric panels in the ceiling and six large acoustical curtains. They work with an acoustic reflector in the hall’s ceiling, and if you don’t notice them, well, you aren’t supposed to. They are designed to blend into the hall’s décor.

“It’s not obvious,” Doria said. “You may not be able to discern if the fabric is extended.”

The exact configuration of the fabric panels will vary, depending on the type of performance — full orchestra or chamber ensemble, vocal soloist or choir. Although Steinmetz Hall will host unamplified performances, it will be equally equipped to stage shows that use microphones.

Doria is noting precise configurations for each type of concert and documenting them in a guide that arts-center staff will use to prepare for future performances.

“My focus is helping the Dr. Phillips Center understand how to best use the hall,” Doria said. “We’re making sure they can make the most of it.”

It’s all a far cry from the Bob Carr, disparaged for decades by theater- and concertgoers for its unpredictable — and often disappointing — sound quality. Among the descriptive phrases that show up through the years in Orlando Sentinel columns and letters to the editor: “inadequate acoustics,” “terrible acoustics,” “vagaries of the acoustics,” “notoriously poor acoustics,” “horrible acoustics,” “familiar difficulties of the acoustics,” “terrible acoustics” and “often-lamented dullness of the acoustics.”

Oh, there’s more: “dry acoustics that seemed to muffle any music onstage,” “odd acoustics that swallow voices” and the “most bemoaned limitation: the acoustics.”

One critic drew this striking mental image of the sound: “like microphones dipped in mud.”

In a survey decades ago, Bob Carr patrons said they would even pay higher ticket prices for an experience that guaranteed better sound.

That’s what Steinmetz Hall is promising — and why the board of directors was determined to provide acoustic excellence from the start.

“Our community said ‘We need to do a good hall,’” said Ramsberger, noting that sound quality was one of the standards prioritized.

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Among the advantages for the newer hall are its shape and size. Decades ago, acoustics experts said the Bob Carr’s nonparallel walls and too-high ceiling meant the space could never have high-quality sound.

Whereas the Bob Carr accommodates more than 2,500 patrons, Steinmetz Hall can seat a maximum of about 1,650.

“It’s the perfect size,” said Jacobsen. “It’s going to be special.”

Another advantage: Advancements in technology and understanding of the science of sound.

“We can achieve of level of clarity that’s unbelievable compared to 10-20 years ago,” Doria said.

Still, the human touch is still important to the art and science of acoustics.

“Hearing great performances in great halls certainly helps,” said Doria, who has worked on the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre in Switzerland, Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, the Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, California, and the Reykjavik Concert Hall and Conference Centre in Iceland.

How does Steinmetz compare to the world’s concert venues? “It is a clean-sounding space, with the clarity of a European hall,” Doria said.

One piece of the acoustics puzzle remains: An audience. Throughout the two-week Grand Celebration of the hall’s opening, Doria will be making adjustments based on what full seats does to the sound.

The tweaking will likely continue afterward as more of the hall’s nuances are revealed.

“It’s a little like Christmas when you open that present and don’t know what it’s going to be,” Jacobsen said. “But you’re excited to find out.”

Doria said Steinmetz Hall’s special qualities will soon reveal themselves to listeners.

“I don’t know of another hall that has that much flexibility and ease in creating the right acoustics for all settings,” Doria said. “It’s really quite remarkable.”

Find me on Twitter @matt_on_arts, facebook.com/matthew.j.palm or email me at mpalm@orlandosentinel.com. Want more theater and arts news and reviews? Go to orlandosentinel.com/arts.