A Factor Analysis Approach to Determining a Small Number of Parameters for Characterising Halls
Acta Acustica united with Acustica. 97, pp. 441 – 462.2011. ISSN 1610-1928
S. CERDÁ, A. GIMÉNEZ, J. ROMERO AND R. CIBRIÁN
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/dav/aaua/2011/00000097/00000003/art00010
https://doi.org/10.3813/AAA.918425
Abstract
Specialist bibliographies reveal that there are many parametersfor fully describing the acoustics of a hall. Are all of these parameters ab-solutely necessary? Although hall acoustics is a complex discipline, we can nevertheless see that many parameters measure aspects that are very similarto musical perception. Our aim in this paper is to use factor analysis to finda small number of statistically independent parameters that will enable mu-sical performance halls to be characterised using just a few parameters. Atthe same time, we aim to identify other parameters that will be useful to re-searchers as part of a lineal combination. To achieve this, we have measuredimpulse responses in 17 halls and determined the most common 18 parameters. By using factor analysis, we have identified the three key factors thatsatisfy the required characteristics. This result confirms those obtained in anearlier study of nine halls. The factors obtained strongly correlate withother classic parameters. Factor 1 correlates with reverberation time; Factor 2correlates with the objective parameters for the impression of space; and Fac-tor 3 correlates with parameters of strength. This last factor also correlatesstrongly with objective parameters for listener envelopment (LEV).
