Relationships between subjective and objective acoustical measures in churches

Abstract

This study reports on subjective and objective acoustical field measurements made in a survey of 36 Catholic churches in Portugal built in the last 14 centuries. Monaural acoustical measurements (RT, EDT. C80, D50. TS and L) were taken at several source/receiver locations in each church and a group of college students was asked to judge the subjective quality of music. The listeners in each church evaluated live music performances at similar locations in each room. Evaluation sheets were used to record the listeners' overall impressions of room acoustic quality and also Loudness, Reverberance. lntimacy, Envelopment, Directionality, Balance, Clarity Echoes and Background Noise. This paper concentrates on the relationships of the subjective pararneters with the objective room acoustics measures and with the architectural features of the churches. Correlation analyses and statistical modeling identified significant relationships among the measures. For instance, linear correlation coefficients ( | R I ) of 0.8-0.9 were found for the relationships: Reverberance/RT and Clarity/C80; the maximum | R | found was 0.93 for Echoes/RT. Regarding architectural features the maximum | R | found was 0.87 between Intimacy and Total Volume.

Can we predict the altered subjective quality assessment of sound after ear canal surgery?

“…Therefore, we have to assess to what extent patients are able to recognize differences in ear canal acoustics, by investigating the relation between the objective measurement and subjective experience of the acoustics of an altered ear canal. Although a correlation between subjective sound quality assessment and objective acoustic quality assessment in Portuguese churches has been described earlier [12], to our knowledge we are the first to investigate the correlation between objective measurements of external auditory canal acoustics and subjective quality assessment of ear canal acoustics.…”

Questionnaire Survey to Qualify the Acoustics of Spanish Concert Halls

“…It should also be mentioned that the subjective judgment in its twoa pproaches, on-site field tests and laboratory tests, is ac ontemporary methodology in room acoustics which can either involveconductors and musicians in the assessment of the acoustics of the stage for solo and chamber music, as in [26], or can involvethe preferred listening conditions in churches as extensively studied by Carvalho [27], and by Martellotta [28]. Ve ry recently the acoustic quality of 20 halls for rock and pop music wass tudied by Adelman-Larsen et al [29].…”

Mismatches between objective parameters and measured perception assessment in room acoustics: A holistic approach

“…By deliberately omitting certain pieces of research in the laboratory [5,6] regarding concert halls and subjective studies of music perception in other architectural spaces [7,8], the focus is centred on certain pieces of work from the two last decades, which, similar to this study, refer to live concerts. In this way, and in agreement with earlier studies using dummy-head recordings, from the results carried out in two concert halls, Sotiropoulou et al.…”