Subjective assessment of broadband background noises in music auditoriums

Evaluations of live performances at multiple locations in 4 auditoriums were followed by evaluations of artificial sounds via headphones to establish the effects of broadband noises on perception of orchestral music. During live performances, noises in the range of NCB 20 to 40 had significant effects on the audibility of noise, clarity and overall impression. However, it is not known if background was an independent factor for overall impression since overall impression was also strongly correlated with reverberation time. With artificial sounds, spectral balanced noises in accordance with NCB 30 and 25 yielded average satisfaction values of 0.5 and 0.8 respectively. For spectral unbalanced noises, the satisfaction value was about 0.1 greater.