Objective evaluation of multipurpose enclosures equipped with active acoustic enhancement systems

Abstract

Research on optimal acoustic parameter values that have been carried out for recent decades and the necessity to provide different acoustic solutions to events of a different type led to construction of rooms with variable acoustic conditions. Nowadays, active acoustic enhancement systems (AAES) become more and more popular. Application of such systems allows adjustments of acoustic parameters required for particular performance. This paper presents results from measurements of objective parameters of multipurpose enclosures equipped with AAES. Investigated halls are located in Poland in the following cities: Łańcut, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Puławy, Wieluń and were intentionally built or renovated as multipurpose rooms. All of those halls were equipped with Yamaha AFC version 3 system. The measurements were performed according to ISO338-1/2 standards. In total 13 active acoustic system settings (presets) were analyzed to investigate their influence namely Reverberation Time (RT), Early Decay Time (EDT), , Initial Time Delay Gap (ITDG), Center Time (Ts), Clarity (C80, C50), Definition (D50), Interaural Cross Correlation (IACC) and Speech Transmission Index (STI). The analysis of the obtained results showed that it is possible to obtain the appropriate acoustic conditions with acoustic parameters values set in the suggested range for a given event using active acoustic systems.