Effects of stage volume ratio on the acoustics of simulated concert halls

Abstract

Simulations were carried out to investigate the effects of changes in stage volume on acoustic parameters of an auditorium in order to propose a suitable design for improving the volume of concert hall stages and to identify the correlations between them. First, nine concert halls of various shapes, including shoebox and fan, were selected for an ODEON simulation. AutoCAD was used to construct a simulation model of the stage volume, which was regularly adjusted in the range of -20% to 30% with increments of 10%. In addition to the volume of the stage, only depth was changed among the physical parameters of the stage (height, depth, and width) to reduce the effects of other factors. To quantify the change in stage volume, the ratio of the stage volume to the total volume of the hall (Vo/V) was calculated. In the simulation, the sound source was located at the center of the stage, auditorium seats were set in a grid at intervals of 2 m, and the sound receiver was placed at a height of 1.2 m. The results show that as the stage volume decreases, the initial energy increases, reverberation time of the auditorium decreases, and degree of clarity increases for most hall shapes. Furthermore, we observed that the stage volume ratio has a significant effect on the Bass Ratio and Bass Index of the concert hall.