Subjective listening tests: Perception and preference of simulated sound fields

Concert hall sound fields were simulated by architecture students and anechoic recordings were convolved to create auralizations in those simulated performance spaces. Then an architectural feature was altered digitally and a second track was auralized. College music students were recruited, tested for hearing loss, and brought to a low-reverberance room with a spatial sound array of 28 mounted speakers. They were asked to identify which of the two simulated tracks they prefer. We compared simulated performance spaces: (1) with four tiers of balconies vs with one tier of balcony; (2) with an over-stage canopy vs without a canopy; (3) with separate balcony boxes vs with a continuous balcony not fragmented by box walls; and (4) with a higher scattering coefficient vs a lower scattering coefficient. Those in the audience will be invited to judge preference between the tracks for themselves. The study will be framed by the extraordinary career arc of Bert Kinzey who engaged architecture students in the study of architectural acoustics at both Virginia Tech and at the University of Florida.