Detection and influence of different locations of diffusive surfaces in a concert hall

This work investigates the effects of diffusive surfaces on concert hall acoustics using in-field measurements with regard to the diffuser location. It aims to enlighten the detectability of their presence in a hall and the preferred location for different signals, such as solo instruments and speech. The case study is a shoebox concert hall with variable acoustics. Six hall configurations have been considered by varying the diffusive surface location on the lateral walls (front, middle and rear), whether the ceiling, rear and front walls were set reflective or absorptive. First, the degree of diffusion has been characterized by the scatter-to-absorption ratio (SAR) and the mean scatter time (MST), and later the analyses has been focused on investigation of the conventional acoustic parameters such as early decay time (EDT), reverberation time (T30), clarity (C80), definition (D50), and interaural cross correlation (IACC). Listening tests have been performed in order to evaluate the listeners sensitivity to the diffusive surfaces location and their preference.