Assessment of the subjective perception of reverberation in Spanish cathedrals

Listening tests based on paired comparisons have been employed to investigate the subjective perception of the acoustic environment in large highly reverberant spaces. Seven cathedrals in the southern half of Spain have been included in the survey, thereby covering a wide range of reverberation-time values from 4.32 s in Murcia cathedral to 8.96 s in Cadiz cathedral at mid-frequencies. These cathedrals present a common architectural typology, known as the “Spanish style”, which allows similar source-receiver points to be selected when comparisons are made between two different cathedrals. The tests were carried out in the listening room of the Acoustics Laboratory of the Applied Physics II Department of the School of Architecture of the University of Seville. Several types of anechoic sound signals (choral pieces, extracts of Baroque instrumental music, and a speech) were auralised with the binaural impulse responses measured in the cathedrals to be used in the tests. Such auralisations were reproduced to the respondents through headphones, thereby ensuring that all audio signals were perceived at the same level during each test. A statistical analysis of the survey has shown both the independence of the recognition of reverberation of most personal characteristics and the dependence with the auralised signals based on instrumental music and on female and male voices. Furthermore, cathedrals with values of reverberation time between 4 and 7 s render the sensation of reverberation indistinguishable for listeners. •A test to assess the perceptive reverberation of Spanish cathedrals is presented.•The recognition of reverberation with personal variables is studied.•Perceptive reverberation for the groups of cathedrals and stimuli is studied.•Subjective reverberation renders obscure for cathedrals with T30 between 4 and 7s.•A ranking of these seven Spanish cathedrals is proposed.