Subjective evaluations of the sound field in a piano practice room with reflective sounds added using electro-acoustic technology.

Abstract

Subjective evaluations of a sound field actively controlled by adding reflective sounds in a piano practice room were made in terms of “Reverberance”, “Spatial impression”, “Home practice” and “Hall practice”. The evaluations made by actually playing the piano and made when listening binaurally through headphones were compared. The evaluations were almost the same, but when actually playing the piano, the piano player's preference for reverberance strongly influenced the evaluations and especially influenced the evaluation of “Home practice”. This suggests that it may be neccesary to take into account the sound absorption of a room as well as the piano player's preference for reverberance in the sound field actively controlled by adding reflective sounds using electroacoustic technology.