Spatio-temporal energy measurements in renowned concert halls with a loudspeaker orchestra

Abstract

Room acoustical parameters are commonly measured as spatial averages from a few source positions to several listening positions. In addition, ISO3382-1:2009 suggests that subjective listener aspect could be predicted with a few parameters at mid frequencies. It is obvious that such recommendation is inadequate to describe all perceptual differences between concert halls or seating positions. Explaining multidimensional subjective impressions is not possibly with a few averaged numbers. In our opinion, to compare accurately between concert halls, the measurement positions should be exactly at the same distance from the sources in each hall. And sources should be numerous to represent the typical real source on a wide area—a symphony orchestra. In this paper, we compare renowned European concert halls with spatio-temporal visualization of sound energy. Measurements at identical distances in halls enable an accurate comparison of sound energy distributions. The analysis of measured spatial impulse responses is performed with spatial decomposition method (SDM). The spatial sound energy distribution is presented at different frequency bands as a function of time to visualize the cumulative energy before and after 100 ms.