Favorable clarity, sound strength, and spaciousness as well as overall acoustical quality of concert halls measured in a 3D synthesized sound field

Abstract

This paper is a companion to “Reexamination of the favorable reverberation time of concert halls measured in a 3D synthesized sound field,” A.S.T., 45, 204–215 [2024]. Anechoic music sources were reproduced by a virtual orchestra set on concert hall stages and were recorded at audience seats. Four music excerpts were chosen. By an Ambisonics playback in the laboratory, a series of psychological experiments were conducted. Twenty-one music experts judged the clarity, sound strength, spaciousness, and overall acoustical quality of the presented sound. Adding the results from the previous paper, a regression analysis on the relationships between contributing subjective attributes and objective parameters found that EDT_M and C_80,3 contributed to clarity, G_M (or G_L) and RT_M to sound strength, and BQI and G_L to spaciousness. Here, subscripts “L,” “M,” and “3” denote octave band averages at 125 and 250 Hz, 500 and 1000 Hz, and at 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz, respectively, and “E” designates early sound, i.e., less than 80 msec. Favorable ranges of physical parameters for each subjective attribute were determined. Reverberance, spaciousness, and clarity were identified as significant subjective attributes contributing to overall acoustic quality, with the corresponding physical metrics being RT_M, G_L, and BQI.