Auditorium Acoustics: Terms, Language, and Concepts

Abstract

There have been primarily three methods for performing subjective studies of the acoustics in concert halls for classical music with the purpose of finding out what people actually think about them. Each of these has its advantages and disadvantages. One method has been to create a virtual concert hall in a laboratory, where either recordings from a given hall or simulations from room-acoustics software were presented to the listeners. The acoustics could either be simulated with an array of loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber or auralized and presented over headphones. With this method, listeners can quickly rate many halls without having to travel long distances. Some other benefits are that halls can be presented anonymously and blindly so that there is no bias based on a hall’s reputation or visual appeal, and the exact same performance of a piece of music can be evaluated in all halls and positions. Despite these advantages, it can be difficult to get truly qualified listeners, such as professional musicians with their busy schedules, to participate in a laboratory experiment. More important, the actual perceived sound in such experiments is very far from the actual listening impressions in the real halls. It is the author’s opinion that it is questionable whether such an approach has a close enough connection to reality.