The standardized acoustic testing of construction materials and methods, and the laboratory setups for carrying out such tests, had several genealogies. Up to World War I, musical listening, musical literacy, and musical practice were the essential skills for acoustic measurement. During and after the war, however, musical listening became increasingly irrelevant to measurement— acousticians now needed skills in electrical engineering and radio to design and use electrical measurement and recording technology. Instead of the inherently subjective human ear, it was now the apparently objective electric system that defined acoustic measurement. Sound abatement initiatives, the rise of electroacoustic technologies, and a transformed understanding of architectural acoustics (especially through the work of Harvard physicist Wallace Sabine in the early twentieth century) all played major roles in the development of a large variety of construction materials with specific acoustic properties. Electroacoustic media, especially radio broadcasting and systems of sound motion pictures and amplification, required new materials to be deployed in the acoustic design of spaces for recording and playback.