Mapping the sound field of a 400 seat theater

Abstract

To what extent does a receiver's location in a room impact what is heard and can that impact be modeled? For this line of study, acoustic parameters of a 400 seat theater were mapped as a function of position at every-seat resolution to quantify the spatial disparity of a sound field. A 1:20 scale model and a ray-tracing software model were then constructed. This study seeks to (1) relate the sound decay rate and pressure level measured at one theater seat to that measured at others, (2) compare the inter-seat sound field maps measured across the frequency spectrum with an eye toward the Schroeder cut-off frequency, and (3) determine the models' reliability in replicating the measured inter-seat variation.