Dynamic responsiveness in concert halls as source of emotional impact

The evaluation of concert hall acoustics traditionally relies on a set of measured objective parameters and perceptual attributes described by listeners. These means aim to predict the subjective preference for particular acoustic conditions. Recent research has introduced alternative approaches for assessing the room-acoustic quality through factors that are oriented more towards the experience evoked by music listening rather than directly rating the characteristics of the acoustic transmission. First, the same music except performed through different concert hall acoustics appears to produce a varying intensity of emotional pleasure. Second, a separate study has indicated that different concert halls have the virtue of augmenting the expressivity of music by expanding the loudness contrasts as well as enhancing the spaciousness perception along dynamically varying music. We hypothesise that the emotional impact, and therefore the listening pleasure in concert halls, is influenced by the expressivity of the music performed in different room acoustics. In this paper we investigate the connections between subjective impact from music listening and the expressivity-intensifying factors of concert hall acoustics.