Effect of musical instrumentation on perception of reverberation in simulated listening environments

Abstract

The reverberance of a performance venue is often characterized by an important metric, reverberation time. In order for architects, acousticians, and performers to better understand the value of knowing and predicting the reverberation time in different spaces, the just-noticeable-difference (JND) is often cited. The established JND for reverberation time is approximately 5% of the reference reverberation, noted in the standard ISO 3382-1. This value was determined using impulsive sound, meaning it may not provide a complete picture for applications related to music. This study aimed to evaluate several elements of musical performance that may alter the perception of reverberation in a simulated listening environment. Primarily, the effect of instrumentation was investigated, including the use of solo, small ensemble, full orchestra, and vocal recordings for comparison. Results were generated using test participants listening to multiple soundfields and providing subjective evaluation. Reverberant soundfields were created in an anechoic listening environment and auralizations were produced using ODEON room acoustics software. Results indicated statistically significant mean differences in reverberation perception between musical instrumentation groups used during experiments. [Work supported by The Paul S. Veneklasen Research Foundation.]