3pAA13. Relationships between subjective and objective acoustical measures in churches.

Session: Wednesday Afternoon, December 4

Time: 5:00


Author: Antonio P. Carvalho
Location: Acoust. Lab., Dept. of Civil Eng., College of Eng., Univ. of Porto, R. Bragas, 4099 Porto Codex, Portugal
Author: Antonio E. Morgado
Location: Acoust. Lab., Dept. of Civil Eng., College of Eng., Univ. of Porto, R. Bragas, 4099 Porto Codex, Portugal
Author: Luis Henrique
Location: Polytechnic Inst. of Porto, 4000 Porto, Portugal

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, L, and RASTI) 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 and the intelligibility of speech. The listeners in each church evaluated live music performances and speech at similar locations in each room. Evaluation sheets were used to grade the listeners' overall impressions of room acoustics qualities and also loudness, reverberance, intimacy, envelopment, directionality, balance, clarity, echoes, background noise, and speech intelligibility. This paper complements the one presented at the Indianapolis ASA Meeting and concentrates on the relationships of the subjective parameters with the objective room acoustics measures and with the architectural features of the churches. The results are graphed and analyzed by comparisons. Correlation analyses and statistical modeling identified significant relationships among the measures. For instance, linear correlation coefficients (R) 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. [Work supported by CEDEC/FEUP/UP and ESMAE/IPP---Portugal.]


ASA 132nd meeting - Hawaii, December 1996