Concert hall acoustics at Bass Hall

Abstract

Traditionally, multi-purpose halls are believed to have less than adequate symphonic acoustic listening characteristics compared to one room concert halls such as Boston Symphony Hall. Over the last two years, students and faculty of the Sonics Program at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute conducted a series of measurements at the multi-purpose Bass Performance Hall in Forth Worth, Texas. In this investigation, Bass Hall is shown to have excellent concert hall metrics when configured for that purpose. Measurements of reverberation time, early decay time, clarity (C80), and center time (Ts) were taken according to the ISO 3382 standard. This data was compared to data from the great one-room concert halls. This comparison demonstrates that Bass Hall can function as an equally excellent concert hall, in spite of being a multi-purpose hall. [Research supported by the Bass Foundation.]