The acoustics for speech of eight auditoriums in the city of Sao Paulo

Abstract

Eight auditoriums with a proscenium type of stage, which usually operate as dramatic theaters in the city of Sao Paulo, were acoustically surveyed in terms of their adequacy to unassisted speech. Reverberation times, early decay times, and speech levels were measured in different positions, together with objective measures of speech intelligibility. The measurements revealed reverberation time values rather uniform throughout the rooms, whereas significant variations were found in the values of the other acoustical measures with position. The early decay time was found to be better correlated with the objective measures of speech intelligibility than the reverberation time. The results from the objective measurements of speech intelligibility revealed that the speech transmission index STI, and its simplified version RaSTI, are strongly correlated with the early-to-late sound ratio C50 (1 kHz). However, it was found that the criterion value of acceptability of the latter is more easily met than the former. The results from these measurements enable to understand how the characteristics of the architectural design determine the acoustical quality for speech. Measurements of ST1-Gade were made as an attempt to validate it as an objective measure of ‘‘support’’ for the actor. The preliminary diagnosing results with ray tracing simulations will also be presented.