Assessing the intelligibility of speech and singing in Mudejar-Gothic churches

Speech intelligibility in these places of worship has been assessed through a study of the spatial distribution of the RASTI and the energy-based acoustic parameters, clarity for speech, C50 and definition, D50. Parameters have been obtained by intensity-modulated stationary noise (IMN) signals and by maximum length sequence (MLS) signals in order to obtain the impulse responses. The 12 churches analysed correspond to the same highly characteristic architectural typology of southern Spain, and measurements were taken without occupancy. A full correlation between those RASTI, C50 and D50 parameters produced by different experimental techniques has been carried out. This correlation has lead to a more profound characterization of these churches from this functional point of view, together with an analysis of the capability of each parameter to take into account the different aspects in the degradation of the signal from speaker to listener in a room, and has also lead to a study of the subjective range of qualification of the energy-based acoustic parameters. Simultaneously, a comparison has been made of the values of those variables with those expected from a semi-empirical model deduced for these religious spaces.