SUBJECTIVE PREFERENCE TESTS FOR SOUND FIELDS IN CONCERT HALLS SIMULATED BY THE AID OF A COMPUTER

In the context of optimal acoustic design of concert halls, preference tests for simulated sound fields with various combinations of early discrete reflections and subsequent reverberation were conducted and the results compared with objective parameters. The results show that lateral early reflections which yield a small value of the interaural cross correlation give more preferred judgments than do non-lateral ones. The most preferred initial time delay (or scale factor for the dimensions of concert halls) can be determined by the long-time autocorrelation function of a music motif and by the total amplitude of both early reflections and the subsequent reverberation. As a comprehensive design concept, an overall preference" for listeners is introduced here from the preference results. © 1979."