Acoustics and Concert Halls

When sound travels from a source to a listener in a room, the environment will shape the sound considerably, mainly through the reflections from boundaries. There are a number of qualities of received sound, and each is linked to the characteristics of sound reflections in certain ways. Although in the evolution of Greek and Roman theatres, the acoustics was already considered and gradually improved with increased reverberation and loudness, the subject of architectural acoustics was only established after W. C. Sabine's pioneering study on reverberation early in the 20th century. He carried out quantitative measurements of reverberation, and it was then possible to relate objective qualities of sound to perception.

The perception of music in a concert hall is multidimensional. In the past few decades, a ...