Graduate Student: Kristina Sorensen, M.Eng. 2017
Warmth, defined by acoustics legend Leo Beranek in 1996 as the “liveness of the bass” or “fullness of the bass tones,” is a subjectively-perceived attribute within concert hall settings. While many musicians may agree on the vast aesthetic contributions of this “depth of tone color” in performance spaces, there exists a lack of objective metrics to correlate with their perception of warmth. While Wilkens in his 1975 paper explores this domain, his analysis limits itself to unoccupied concert hall settings. Similarly, Barron (1981) and Lokki (2011), while beneficial in their creative approaches, evaluate the impact of bass on perceptual preference in concert halls with limitations in associating the sensation with existing metrics. SPRAL’s research in this area involves more readily linking quantitative measurements with qualitative attitudes regarding warmth as a fundamental means to include within predictive models for concert hall preference.