Frequency perception as a measure of room acoustic quality

Abstract

For the development of auditorium acoustics as a science, a reliable procedure for rating halls needs to be developed which is independent of the music, performers and other confounding non-acoustical variables. The present work is aimed at producing a test which can be used to rate the acoustic quality of rooms for music. Listeners' perceptions of frequency change in sounds were investigated in the search for a useful subjective indicator of the acoustics of a room. The influence of the acoustics of the listening environment on the listeners' perceptions of frequency change at mid- and high-frequencies was observed and analysed based on the 2AFC (two alternative forced choice) and 2-down, 1-up adaptive test paradigm. Also, listeners' preferred positions for listening to music were investigated in a reverberant listening condition using music excerpts recorded under anechoic conditions. It was found that different listening positions in a room have a significant effect on the listeners' perceptions of frequency change. A negative relationship was found between a listener's preference (ie. the acoustics) for the flute recordings and the JNDs of frequency change while the perception of frequency change was negatively correlated with the listening preference for the guitar and percussion recordings.