Physical measurements vs. auditory assessment of a concert hall by different groups of users: a case study

摘要

The acoustical quality of a medium size (6200 m~3 volume, 880 seats) shoebox shaped symphonic concert hall, renowned for its acoustics and protected by the cultural heritage law, was evaluated by the measurement of acoustic parameters (EN-ISO 3382-1:2009) and by auditory assessment of sound with the use of survey questionnaires which required from the respondents to judge various attributes of sound and comment on their experience with the hall. The judgments were obtained from the conductor, the soloists, orchestra members, choir singers, recording engineers, and from the audience. The hall's acoustics received generally high ratings from the audience. Orchestral musicians highly estimated the audibility of one's own instrument and other instruments in the orchestra. Choir singers judged the audibility of other voices in the choir as satisfactory. The conductor assessed the overall sound quality as good, but also pointed at insufficient fusion of sound across the orchestral instrumental groups. Sound engineers judged the hall's acoustics as very good for recording of chamber music and small orchestras, but not for very large ensembles. An attempt is made in this paper to relate the results of auditory judgments of the hall's acoustics to its measured acoustic parameters.